Gift of the Dark Ancestor
by Ephemeral-Nightboy
Summary: Eelesia is a girl with a mysterious past who's touch negates all sources of arcane magic. Acreon is a boy from the city with enormous talent for spellcasting and an upbringing that puts it to use. This is their story. -ON HIATUS-
1. Prey

(**Warcraft** belongs to **Blizzard**. Etc. Etc.)

(And be warned, M-rated _means_ M-rated. This story doesn't hold back and is not for the squeamish.)

* * *

**~PREY~**

In the night over the city of Stormwind, a dark shape moved among the clouds. No one sees it. No one would want to see it. The myriad human forms moving quickly through the streets of the city were intent only on getting to wherever it is they were going. Yet though this lurking shadow went unseen, it was not unseeing. Cold, alien eyes pierced the clouds and darkness, following this human or that one with a predatory fasination, like a child forced to pick one sweet from among many.

A flash of skin, ivory in the muted light of the White Lady, drew those eyes to an alley on the east side of the city. Beneath cloak and hood, a woman who might still be called a girl hurried on her way. Her step was quick, revealing the pale skin of her legs for a brief instant with each stride. A few stray strands betrayed the girl's raven-black hair.

The dark shape descended, shadow on shadow as he moved into the city to stalk his prey. The shadow's shape changed as it neared the streets. Its long and sinuous black body, broken only by streaks burning an icy blue, drew into itself, becoming more solid. Gliding over the girl's head, the shadow shrank and sank in equal measure, becoming man-shaped and coporeal.

As the last of the shadows sank into the silently gliding creature, only his eyes and his unlikely beauty betrayed him as something other than human. Human, but fully nude and hanging in the air like a specter. He watched the girl hurry along, inhuman eyes piercing fabric and tracing the soft curves of her young body. He began to become aroused.

Just then, the clouds parted briefly and moonlight cast his shadow sharply on the paving stones before the girl. She glanced behind her, and finding the alley empty, immediatly looked upwards. She saw an impossibly beautiful naked man floating in the air above her. Her eyes widened in shock, her breath caught, and as she turned, her foot caught on a poorly laid stone and she tripped.

Faster than lightning, he was there. He caught her before she hit the ground, and held her there, half fallen and wide-eyed.

The girl's terror warred with lust, tugging her dizzily between flushed and bloodless. She knew she had to flee, but she could not pull her eyes from the flawless angles of her stalker. For a bare second, terror won out, and she recoiled away from the impossible naked man that had caught her. Sliding out of his arms she threw herself into a sprint.

But before she could take her first step, some magical force struck her squarely between her shoulders and she crashed into the cobblestones, tangling her legs in her cloak. Her stalker flicked his fingers again, and every last stitch of clothing on the girl disolved into dust, leaving her sprawled stark naked in the middle of the street.

Fully terrified now, the girl scrambled to her feet, but before she could get her legs under her, the impossible man was behind her, one arm around her neck and another through her legs. He lifted her easily, and for the first time, she screamed, flailing helplessly though perhaps not as wildly as she was able. The sudden feeling of warm, perfect flesh against her bare back and crotch clouded her thoughts and her fear.

He rose into the air with her. Not terribly high, but high enough that if he dropped her, she probably wouldn't be able to make it home on her own. She stared at the ground falling away and went rigid with terror when the impossible man shifted his grip, dangling her upside down, his hands on her hips. She kicked and clawed but touched only air; she couldn't reach him from where she was, couldn't see him, could only feel his hands holding her up by her hips as her legs kicked fruitlessly at the sky.

Then something soft and moist touched her sex, impossibly warm after exposure to the cold night air, and she failed in her struggles. It was his tongue. The girl's eyes nearly bulged out of her skull as it slithered snakelike through her netherlips, keeping constant contact with her clit as it doubled back and continued to slide, probing the suddenly-moist fleshy tunnel to her womb.

A noise came from the girl's throat, halfway between a scream and a moan, but not reaching the volume of either. The tongue, impossibly longer and thicker than any human tongue should be, slithered into her, prying her loins open with its girth, and her body forgot to be terrified. Then, as it wiggled around inside her and the tip flitted around her cervix, she moaned out loud, struggling to remember why she needed to be afraid.

Without moving his grip, he turn her over so she was suddenly rightside up and facing him, and she was suddenly light headed, near to passing out. His tongue retracted, leaving her eager loins and sliding up her back and over shoulder as it returned to a more human length. She was too dizzy to notice that last.

He handled her easily, positioning her over his throbbing manhood. He sheathed himself in her flesh and she cried out, though she remained only half-consious. Skin ivory in the moonlight, the creature's and the girl's limbs tangled, her body impaled on his organ. She moaned and rode him feebly, only semi-aware. His phallus pulsed, battering the fleshy walls of her sex as it sprayed her womb with his inhuman seed.

She wiggled feebly, her eyes rolling up in to her head in pleasure. The creature stared at her coldly as she moved ungracefully against him, hot fluids dripping out of her, gleaming white. He hit her in the head with the back of a knuckle, just hard enough to render her fully unconsious. Then he lifted her off him and deposited her on the cobblestones, naked, bruised, and leaking his seed. He took care not to injure her further, because he wanted more than a simple night's pleasure from this one. He could sense the spark of life taking root within the girl, and wanted to ensure it grew to fruition.

Satisfied, he turned away and rose, his form darkening and blurring and growing as he swept upward into the black sky.


	2. Fate

**~FATE~**

The girl survived for a time, giving birth to a strange young boy who grew up thinking he was human, and he fathered his own childen. Wars began and ended. The vast majority of Stormwind was burnt to the ground and rebuilt. Another continent was discovered across the sea. Great heroes and great villians fought epic battles.

The daughter of the daughter of the son of the girl who was raped by that unknown being so long ago, died giving birth to a daughter of her own when her nursemaid's spells failed her. She used her last breath to force the babe's name from her lips.

Eelesia.

An orphan, she reached the age of eight in the small town of Moonbrook with other parentless children. She was pretty, some thought, pale as the first moon with raven-black hair and eyes an impossibly vivid ice blue. She kept to herself, for the other children feared her, though even they couldn't say why. Eelesia was kind enough. Soft spoken and observant for a child of eight.

It is there, in the small mining town of Moonbrook, that our story begins.

* * *

It was an early fall morning, the sun rising over the hills behind the town, and Eelesia was sitting in the shadow of the town square fountain watching the other children play in the street. Two blonde boys were arguing over whatever game they were playing.

"Nuh uh!"

"Yeh huh! Its a rule!"

"I never heard no rule like that!"

"It don't matter you never heard of it! It's still a rule!"

Eelesia rolled her eyes and smiled to herself. Jak and Garett would argue about everything. It was a daily entertainment for her.

The unfamiliar sound of of a carrage drew Eelesia's icy eyes to the main road by the schoolhouse. The wagon wasn't the local sort, so Eelesia guessed it had come from the city. She perked up with interest.

The driver reigned to a stop and two richly dressed men and a young boy filed out. The boy was strikingly pale. He glanced up in the general direction of the sun and grimaced. The boy and the red-robed man Eelesia guessed was his father from the similarity in their coloring, followed the other, rust-haired man up the stares of the schoolhouse and were greeted stiffly by Misses Oliva.

The red-robed man turned to his companion and said, "Let's make this quick, Stalvan."

The one called Stalvan nodded and returned the Misses' greeting.

Red-robe knelt to be at eye-level with his son, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You go and occupy yourself, but stay in sight of the carrage, and don't use any magic, okay?"

"Okay," the boy answered, a little too quickly.

"Acreon..."

"Okay!" Acreon gave his father a look, and hopped down from the schoolhouse stairs, wandering along the side of the building, sticking to the shade. He wore a simple blood-red vest and black pants, bare arms swinging in a mockery of mindlessness.

Eelesia watched him, intrigued, as he walked not quite towards her but in her general direction. At first glance he was just another unremarkable eight-year-old boy, but at the same time he was so vastly different, like the body was merely a hint of the spirit that moved it. Eelesia stared at him as she puzzled. None of the other children had noticed. A few had glanced at him but when he remained off the side of the road, they quickly went back to their games.

The boy called Acreon seemed to feel her gaze and looked up, and Eelesia felt a wholey unfamiliar thrill when their eyes locked. She didn't look away and neither did he. The bored expression on Acreon's face shifted to a frown, his head tilting slightly to the side as he considered her. His eyes. He had the strangest eyes, a deep purple.

Eelesia was sure he was noticing the same indefinable quality that made all the other children keep away from her, but unlike the other children, Acreon seemed purely curious rather than put off. His expression was almost... bemused.

She waved tenativly, her expression almost mirroring his.

Acreon glanced up at the overhang that was shielding him from the sun and pursed his lips in annoyance. Setting his shoulders with a sharp sigh, he stepped out of the shadow and made his way across the square to where Eelesia was sitting. He winced when the sun touched him.

"Hi," he said simply when he reached her.

"Hi. Want to sit down?" she asked, scooting over to make room in the shadow of the fountain.

Acreon dropped smoothly into the space, set his chin on his hands, and said, "You don't belong here."

Eelesia blinked. "What do you mean?"

He smirked. "Look in my eyes, what do you see?"

"Purple irises and a slightly bloodshot left sclera," Eelesia answered gravely, giving him a bland look.

"Oh is that all?" Acreon asked, raising one eyebrow.

Eelesia managed to keep a straight face for several moments before she started giggling. She smiled at the boy and said, "I see there is more than an ordinary boy sitting with me."

Acreon looked smug, but Eelesia thought she saw him trying to hide a blush. "And I see more than an orphan girl. What's your name?"

"Eelesia."

"Pretty."

She smiled. "Really?"

Acreon nodded. "I'm Acreon."

Turning to face him better, Eelesia asked, "Are you a mage?"

He grinned and nodded again. "I'm not allowed to use magic here, though. My dad says it might scare the locals."

"Sensible."

Acreon raised an eyebrow. "You think so?"

"Misses Oliva is always saying how we're 'lucky we live in a nice town where folk don't go meddling in things best forgotten,'" Eelesia quoted. "The other grown-ups seem to agree with her. I don't."

Acreon shruged. "You would know, I suppose. I just hate it when I have to act like one of the manaless."

"Do you ever get tired of acting your age?" Eelesia asked curiously.

Acreon looked at her and smiled at the question. "Sometimes. Don't you?"

Eelesia grinned. "Sometimes."

"Want to be friends?" Acreon asked.

"Very much," Eelesia answered honestly, grabbing the hand he offered.

Acreon's smile froze in place, the blood draining out of his face. For a second he sat motionless as a statue. Then, with a scream of terror, he recoiled from Eelesia's touch, tumbling backward from his seat and falling into the dirt.

Eelesia shrank back in shock, feeling the beginnings of tears. "What? What's wrong?"

Striken, Acreon continued to scrambled backwards through the dirt. "Stay away!" he yelled. "What did you do to me?"

Hugging her knees, Eelesia shouted right back at him, "I didn't do anything!"

Acreon continued to scramble backward as though something horrifying and disgusting had exploded out of the little girl's body. When he was about halfway across the square, he finally stopped and saw Eelesia's wide, fearful eyes staring at him over her knees.

Acreon's fingers flexed and his lips moved, but nothing happened. He tried again and let out a massive sigh of relief when the magic rushed through him, blasting the dirt away in a circle around where he lay and lifting him gently to his feet. He let it fade away and tried very hard to calm himself.

As he walked back over to Eelesia, the other children in the square were the ones staring, some of them backing away slowly, a few bolting outright.

Stopping at a polite distance from Eelesia, Acreon took a shaky breath and tried to apologize. "Sorry. I-"

Eelesia was on her feet, arms crossed and face set in a glare. "What in the depths of the nether was that about?"

Acreon looked at her pleadingly. "I don't know how to explain. I thought-you just suprised me is all."

Eelesia's expression softened, but only a little. "What did I do?"

"If I promise not to freak out again, can we sit back down?" Acreon implored her.

"Alright, fine," she replied, plopping down cross-legged.

Placing himself carefully in his previous seat, Acreon sighed and stared at his hands. "You really don't know, do you." It wasn't a question.

"Know what?"

Acreon glanced up at her. "I can sense it now; I wasn't paying attention before, but I should have figured. I could sense it when I first saw you from across the square."

Eelesia momentarily forgot her hurt. This boy knew what made her different. "Sense what?"

"You're..." Acreon shook his head. "I'll show you."

He lifted his left hand, holding it palm up. His fingers twitched and a flame burst into being, bright and strong. Eelesia could feel the heat of it on her face.

"Touch my hand again," he encouraged her. "Go on."

Eelesia gave him a doubtful look, but did as he asked. As her fingertips drew near to Acreon's, the flame sputtered and shrank. She pulled her hand away and it flared back to life. She blinked in suprise, stretching her hand forward again. Again, the flame weakened, and when her fingertips made contact with Acreon's hand, the flame winked out, gone completely.

"I don't understand," she said, wide-eyed.

Acreon leaned back against the stone of the fountain's trunk, and glanced at her, purely intrigued again. "When you touched me, the magic was gone," Acreon laughed. Eelesia looked at him, confused, so he elaborated. "As a mage, I exsist in a constant sea of magical energy. I feel it surrounding me every hour of every day, and when I cast spells it flows through me and becomes my will. Having that just vanish as if it never were, scared me."

"You're saying I took your magic away?" Eelesia asked incredulously.

"More than that, I think," he replied, finally smiling again. "You're special somehow. You have some kind of innate mana supression. Anti-magic."

"Anti-magic?" Eelesia raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe I'm the one who should have asked you what you are," Acreon chuckled.

"But why would that make the other children keep away from me?" Eelesia wondered.

Acreon frowned as he considered that. "Dad told me once that there is magic in everything and everyone. Maybe they feel something, just like me, only they don't know what to make of it and write it off as ordinary fear. I imagine they could get used to it if they wanted to, though..."

Eelesia stared into space as she processed this. She looked over at Acreon. "Thank you," she said, full of gratitude for this strange boy who had come out of nowhere to explain this to her. She reached out gingerly for Acreon's hand. He didn't pull away. "Friends?" she asked.

Acreon grinned. "Absolutely."

"Do you live in Stormwind?" Eelesia asked.

"Yep!"

Eelesia leaned forward hungrily. "What's it like in the city?"

Acreon grinned and began to describe life in the Mage Quarter. He told her about the Sanctum and the spiral paths covered in soft grass. He described the canals and the statues in the Valley of Heroes, and was just getting to the royal castle when they were interupted.

"Acreon!"

Acreon broke off in the middle of describing the library, and looked around. Eelesia followed suit. Acreon's father was standing next to their carrage, beckoning. "Come on, we're done here," he called.

Acreon moved to stand, looking back at Eelesia, torn. Before he could say anything, though, Eelesia was on her feet too, desperation clear on her face.

"Can I come with you?" she asked urgently, unthinkingly grabbing Acreon's arm. To his credit, he didn't flinch away when he felt the magic dissapear. "I hate it here, and you said yourself that I don't belong here."

Acreon stared at her for a moment. He seemed to go away into thought. "I have an idea," he said, grinning again.

"What?"

"I'm going to introduce you to my father," he said. "I want you to shake his hand."

Eelesia's eyebrows shot up in suprise, but she caught up quickly. Any mage such as Acreon's father would be immensly intrigued by her "anti-magic" as Acreon called it. Silver lining? Her curse was pure gold if it meant she got to escape this dusty town and go live in the city. Eelesia found herself smiling broadly.

She walked beside Acreon to the back of the wagon where Acreon's father was rearranging a few stacks of books. The tall but kindly-faced man in red robes glanced down at his son, his eyes sweeping passed him and settling on the little girl who stood beside him.

"Have you made a friend, son?" he asked politely.

"This is Eelesia, Dad," Acreon replied.

Eelesia held out her hand nervously. Acreon's father smiled and shook it. "Well, its nice to meet you, young la-"

The older mage's reaction was similar to Acreon's, if slightly more comical. He wrenched his hand away and stumbled backwards, tripping over his robes. He landed ass-first in the dirt. Eelesia was glad there was no one else around to witness his embarassment.

Acreon, however, cluched his sides, positivly rolling with silent laughter, while his father picked himself up from the ground. "For the love of all that is sacred!" he snarled.

"Oh relax, Dad," Acreon laughed. "She's not doing it on purpose."

Acreon's father picked himself up and dusted himself off, staring at the girl. He did not look angry or frightened. His expression shifted from amazement through astonishment and settled on worried.

Worried?

The red-robed mage came and knelt down infront of Eelesia, putting him at eye level with her. He stared into her eyes and frowned. After a second he brightened. "How would you like to take a trip to the city, miss Eelesia?"

"I would like that very much, sir," she answered as respectfully as she could.

"Come on then," he said with an air of politeness, though his eyes were riveted on the little girl.

"Where's mister Stalvan?" Acreon asked.

"He's not coming back with us. He has other buisness," his father said distractedly as he quickly penned a note and gestured, sticking it magically to the door of the schoolhouse.

Once they were all inside the carrage comfortably, Acreon's father gestured forward and the horses pulled the carrage up to a steady travel speed.

"What's your name, sir?" Eelesia asked.

Acreon's father blinked. "Oh, forgive me, little one. Name's Khet. Khet Kalistrak" He sighed. "Listen, this is very important."

Eelesia nodded.

"Your ability to... your..."

"Anti-magic," Acreon supplied.

Khet glanced at his son with raised eyebrows. "Yes, I suppose that is as good a name as any. Anyway, I very much want to study it. It makes you utterly unique, Eelesia. In all the writtings I've ever studied, no one has ever encountered such a thing."

He smiled at the little girl. "However, your... anti-magic could prove very dangerous to you."

"Dangerous?" Eelesia asked warily.

"You're young, so of course you wouldn't see this," Khet continued. "If knowledge of your power ever became public... Those who fear magic would seek to use you as a talisman against it, and those you were used against would seek to destroy you for it."

Eelesia shivered. "I'll be careful," she said.

"Good." Khet turned to Acreon. "We're not going to tell your mother about her," he said.

Acreon raised an eyebrow and shrugged when Eelesia glanced at him.

"I trust my wife," Khet said. "But the fewer people who know about you, the better."

"Okay," Eelesia said simply.

By this time, Moonbrook was completely out of sight. Khet noticed and gestured, bringing the carrage to a stop. He leaned towards the door, but Acreon got there first.

"Can I do the portal this time?" he begged. "Please?"

"Acreon, do you remember what happened last time I let you cast the portal?" Khet asked sternly.

Acreon crossed his arms. "That's not fair! I'd just been working with Mom in the workshop; I was dizzy from the chemical fumes!"

Khet grumbled and sighed. "Alright, but if you damage the Sanctum again, this will be the last time as long as I'm around."

Acreon looked at Eelesia and grinned triumphantly. He reached under the seat and produced a tiny draw-string bag, shaking a small handful of sparkly green powder onto his hand.

"Can I watch?" Eelesia asked.

Khet groaned. "If you must. Just keep a safe distance, alright?"

Eelesia nodded and Acreon grinned again, hopping down out of the carrage and making his way out onto the road in front. Eelesia followed him but hung back by the horses.

Acreon stood impressivly in the middle of the road, head down in concentration with the hand containing the powdered gemstone outstretched. Eelesia could see his lips moving. Suddenly, Acreon lifted his head and opened his hand, and there was a sound like wind.

Glowing, the powder shot from Acreon's hand and formed up, creating a circle of twenty-one runes hanging in the air. The circle began to spin in place like a giant wheel, and in the center the land itself seemed to bend as the whirling runes and Acreon's will twisted a hole in the air.

Acreon, guiding Eelesia before him, climbed back into the carrage triumphantly. "See, Dad? Piece of cake."

Khet rolled his eyes, but smiled proudly as he gestured and they passed through the portal onto the springy grass of the Mage Quarter of Stormwind.


	3. Birthday

**~BIRTHDAY~**

Eelesia liked to think that life in the city was everything she'd expected it to be, but in truth she hadn't had any idea what to expect. Only that it would be better than her orphan life on the edge of Westfall, and in that it did not dissapoint.

She was given her own room adjacent to Acreon's in the Kalistrak's apartment block. She became fast friends with Acreon's mother, Halia. Halia liked to tinker with the gnomish sciences, and when she had shown Eelesia her workshop, Eelesia had understood how all the complex devices worked, a little too easily. Halia said she had a knack for it.

Several months passed by, life settling into a fairly stable routine. Eelesia spent most mornings running wild through the city with Acreon, always making it home before midday to work with Halia in the workshop. Her evenings were spent in a private lab in the Sanctum with Khet and his study of her "anti-magic," though after spending a few weeks watching Khet experiment, Eelesia began to pick up a few of the basics of arcane magic. Soon, Khet's experiments were punctuated by lessons, and after a while, when Khet had exhausted everything he could think of to test Eelesia's unique ability, those evenings became lessons only.

As far as Eelesia's "anti-magic" was concerned, its workings seemed simple, even if its origin remained a mystery. While Eelesia herself was displaying rudimentary magical ability, anyone or anything she touched was completely cut off from any arcane energies. After breaking contact, the time it took for the vacuum to wear off seemed to correlate with how long the contact lasted, varying only slightly from one fingertip to both hands fully clasped. Mere proximity seemed to dampen the potency of the ambient magic, but only especially grand spells became impossible for a skilled mage.

Through everything, Acreon and Eelesia stuck together like magnets, though they were always careful never to touch more than they had to. Acreon couldn't stand to be cut off from his power any more than nessesary, but his constant close proximity to Eelesia was giving him a strength and control over his magic that most mages didn't achieve until well after their hair had gone grey.

So the months passed into winter, and Eelesia woke on the morning of her ninth birthday to the smell of chocolate.

* * *

The warm, mouthwatering aroma of sugary baked goods dragged Eelesia up out of a strange dream where she was flying in a sea of dark clouds. She yawned and rolled onto her back to stretch.

"Happy birthday Eelesia," Acreon's familiar voice said from somewhere to her right.

Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Eelesia looked around and saw him seated cross-legged in mid air off the side of her bed. A plate was resting on his lap. On it was a slice of chocolate cake, and it smelled heavenly.

"For me?" Eelesia asked with mock modesty, pushing herself up to sit.

Acreon just grinned and handed her the plate and a fork. She was extra careful not to touch him as she took it. Causing him to fall out of the air and bruise his backside on the floor seemed a poor way to repay his thoughtfulness.

The cake tasted even better than it smelled.

When she was finished, Acreon set his feet on the floor as she slid off the bed and gave him a quick but heartfelt hug, beaming at him.

"Thanks."

"Get dressed," he suggested. "You're getting more than sweets today, birthday girl."

Eelesia smiled and blushed. "You don't have to make a grand event of it."

"Oh yes I do," Acreon laughed. "Mom and Dad insisted. They say they want to make up for all the birthdays you didn't get to celebrate properly."

Eelesia raised her eyebrows at him. "Oh. Wow."

Acreon grinned at her expression and gave her a playful push towards the wardrobe. Eelesia peeled off her shift, leaving her naked as she rumaged for pants and a blouse, but they were children, and thought nothing of nudity.

Once Eelesia was dressed, Acreon walked her down the hallway to the common room.

"Dad's been conjuring food since dawn," he informed her, answering her raised eyebrow at the tasty smells that wafted from the dining room.

Halia greeted them from one of the plush armchairs, smiling at the two children and beckoning Eelesia over.

"I can't believe you're going to so much trouble," Eelesia said, trying to infuse her voice with as much appreciation as she felt.

"Nonsense. We're actually having a bit of fun with it," Halia told her, smiling to herself. "So, do you want your present now or after your birthday feast?"

"Present?" Eelesia asked.

"Just a little something I've been working on," Halia replied, lifting a thin metal box from her pocket. "Happy birthday, Eelesia."

Eelesia took the box. It was heavy and all silvery in her hands, with a small circular pattern engraved on the lid. The hinge was sturdy and new, but it wouldn't open. Eelesia glanced up at Halia, who was watching her intently, as she sometimes did when they were together in the workshop.

It only took Eelesia a few seconds to figure it out. It was a pressure-release catch. She grinned and pressed down on the lid until she heard a faint click, then let the lid hinge open under its own power.

Inside, it was immediatly obvious that the box wasn't a box at all. The bottom half was sealed over with what Eelesia thought was glass, to protect the mind-bogglingly complex mechanical workings therein.

The inside of the top half was glass too, but there was nothing under it. Just what looked like gemstone dust embedded in it. Eelesia's ears detected a subtle whirring and then the music box began to play. As the soft notes filled the room, the inside of the lid lit up in a swirling of colors that seemed to dance to the music.

"Oh!" Eelesia breathed. "It's incredible. Thank you so much."

"Don't just thank me," Halia told her. "Acreon helped me make it. The dancing lights were actually his idea."

Eelesia carefully closed the music box and looked at Acreon, amazed. "Really?"

Acreon grinned smugly, but there was color in his cheeks. He nodded.

"It's wonderous," Eelesia murmured. She looked up at them and smiled excitedly. "You guys have to show me how this thing works!"

"Later," Acreon said. "Come on, I think Dad's ready for us."

Halia glanced into the adjacent room. "Khet?" she called.

A moment passed, and Khet emerged from the dining room, triumphant. "And now, we feast!" he announced with mock severity.

Along the back wall of the dining room, Khet had several books scattered in mid air. They were all open to diagrams of complicated conjuration spells. He plucked them out of the air as he walked around the table and set them down in a corner.

The table itself was set with the sort of eye-popping feast Eelesia had only previously seen in paintings. She hopped into her chair, eyeing the roast hungrily.

* * *

Afterward, the Kalistraks spent the rest of the morning in the common room, doing nothing of consequence. Eelesia laid sideways across the armchair, her music box open in her lap. Khet was dozing on the loveseat. Acreon and Halia were seated cross-legged on the floor, facing each other across a levitating chessboard.

It was a moment Eelesia would remember for a long time. The people she cared about enjoying an idyllic sort of peacefulness. It filled her with contentment. She smiled.

Acreon and Halia finished their game. Halia won, but only narrowly.

"You almost had me that time," she said, winking at her son.

Eelesia closed the music box and stretched, swiveling herself upright.

"Hey, did you still want to see the royal library?" Acreon asked her, picking himself up.

"Oh. Um, yeah!" Eelesia replied, hopping off the armchair.

"No time like the present, huh?" Acreon grinned. "Come on!"

"Have fun," Halia called after the two kids as they scampered away.

Eelesia followed Acreon through the halls of their building, down two spiral staircases and out onto the streets of the mage quarter, moving quickly with the energy only children can muster.

"So are you going to tell me what you meant about the royal library having a different sort of books?" Eelesia asked.

"Oh. Yeah, the royal library is special because they only keep one-of-a-kind volumes," Acreon told her. "Old histories, journals; writings you can't find anywhere else in the world."

"Neat," Eelesia replied, notions of secret knowledge spinning through her head. She had the peculiar feeling that there was something specific she should be looking for. She had no idea what, but it seemed to tug at the edge of her thoughts like something half-forgotten.

The feeling had come on suddenly, and Eelesia frowned as she tried to dig a reason for it out of her memory.

She walked, not seeing where she was going until she suddenly felt Acreon's hand on her arm. Eelesia blinked and looked up.

"Wrong way," Acreon chuckled. "You go somewhere just now?"

Eelesia rolled her eyes and shook her head, feeling heat in her face. Acreon just shrugged as they came out into the canals.

They rented a small wooden boat and set off across the city, propeled by a quickly-cast spell.

"Did I ever mention something specific I'd be looking for?" Eelesia asked finally. "I feel like I'm forgetting something."

Acreon shook his head and shrugged.

Eelesia sighed, shrugging too.

Their boat sliced through the still waters of the canals, rounding a bend and bringing the Old Town dock into view. Acreon brought the boat to a stop alongside the stone steps and leapt out, Eelesia following nimbly.

Above them, the royal towers climbed the mountain side, looming impressivly over the city.

Eelesia grinned impishly at Acreon. "I'll race you."

Acreon smirked, accepting the challenge.

They ran, laughing, up the grand sloping enterance hall, ignoring the guards who eyed them with slight frowns. Acreon made it to the corner first but a distracted-looking fellow with a stack of parchment was right in his path. As they raced for the square of grass in the small courtyard up ahead, Eelesia vaulted off the far wall to avoid the startled scribe, landing solidly in the lead.

Eelesia tumbled onto the grass first, giggling triumphantly. Acreon plopped down next to her to catch his breath.

"Luck," Acreon grumbled.

Eelesia rolled her eyes. "That's the library there, right?" she asked, pointing to an antechamber.

"Yeah."

"That something is bugging me again," she sighed, trying to pin down the nagging feeling.

Acreon stood up and offered Eelesia his hand. "Come on."

Eelesia followed Acreon into the library, bypassing the most prominent shelves with no more than a cursory glance. The interesting stuff was usually in the back, Acreon had told her.

A strange pull seemed to draw Eelesia straight to a shelf along the north wall, straight to a thin but ancient volume bound in simple black leather.

"What's that?" Acreon asked.

"I don't know," Eelesia told him, not sure what she was doing.

Acreon shrugged, and a thicker blue tome caught his eye. He pulled it down and balanced it in one hand so he could flip through it.

"Oh neat, an architectural study on Karazhan," he said, instantly absorbed.

Eelesia, meanwhile, examined the unasuming book she'd been compelled to pull down. It had no title and its pages were filled with gibberish, and she was almost sure every page was exactly the same pattern of nonsensical hexagonals. She blinked. The meaningless pattern was playing tricks on her eyes, seeming to hint dozens of images at once.

Unreasonably, a shiver ran down her spine.

Eelesia snapped the book shut and put it back where she found it, turning to read over Acreon's shoulder. The architecture of the enigmatic Guardian's tower sounded fasinating to her as well as to Acreon.

Unseen by all eyes, the thin black book Eelesia had first examined melted into mist.

* * *

That night, Eelesia was smiling to herself as she climbed into her big blue bed. That the past day had been the best birthday of her young life was not in doubt. Eelesia was feeling distinctly blissful as she snuggled into the blankets and closed her eyes.

So it was all the more shocking when she found herself in a nightmare.

The dark made it hard to see as the frightened, naked creature fled through the underbrush. Alien flora reached into the blackness, their fantastical colors all muted to the dull blood red of the looming moon. Something hunted her, some shadow in the night. Her breath came ragged as she sprinted, her body propelled by blind terror.

A shallow cliff was ahead, but the creature kept her gossamar wings tight against the vivid skin of her bare back. Some part of her must have still been lucid enough to know better than to try to catch air in the dense growth of the forest floor.

She lept from the cliff, spreading her wings as much as she dared. She could not keep up this pace; her heart thudded loudly in protest and her breaths dragged in fast gasps.

Fatigued as she was, she stumbled, her bad landing sending her sprawling into the humus. The young Sayaad slid to a stop with her face in the dirt, leaving a trench in the fallen leaves.

She felt the shadow behind her.

With a breathless, unbidden scream, she stumbled to her feet and lurched forward. It was so close, she could feel it in the prickle of her skin, gaining.

With no other recourse, the Sayaad spread her wings and lept into the air. She had almost begun to feel a glimmer of hope, of relief, when the branches caught her. Of course. The canopy was much to thick to fly through.

Only, it didn't feel like branches on her skin. Too smooth, too soft, too slick and too warm. She shreaked again, flailing away from the not-branches she couldn't see clearly in the red moonlight. They wound around her, snaring her limbs and gagging her as they dragged her back to the ground.

They forced her down flat on her back among the leaves. The ones that weren't restraining her slithered over her bare flesh like snakes. The Sayaad struggled futilely, eyes wide with fear.

"If you struggle, I'll have to get rough with you, youngling," a voice intoned, rich and warm. A mockery of warmth.

The Sayaad froze, only shuddering slightly as the unknown things continued to slither over her body.

"Its not easy to find mortal Sayaad such as yourself, you know," the voice murmured.

A shadow shifted, and the speaker moved into the moonlight, revealing a face terrifying in its beauty. Cruel eyes blazing green like bottomless pits of felfire.

Eelesia screamed.

Lurching from her blankets, she smacked the arcane circuit that would fill the room with a soft, magical light. She hugged her shoulders, looking around wildly.

After a few seconds, with the lights on, Eelesia began to calm down. Those eyes... she shuddered and set about taking slow, deliberate breaths.

"Nightmare," she grumbled, shivering.

She fell back onto her pillow, hugging the blankets to herself, and tried to get back to sleep. The details of the dream faded as they were want to do, but her pulse stubbornly refused to slow so she just stared at her bed's canopy for a while.

Eelesia suddenly felt strangly alone. She shivered again, wrapping her arms around herself, though it was not cold. Sighing, Eelesia rolled out of bed and padded quietly across the hall to Acreon's room. She climbed up on the foot of his bed and put her hand on his leg.

"Acreon?"

He stirred but didn't wake. Eelesia nudged him.

"Mmh what?" Acreon mumbled sleepily.

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" she asked. "I had a bad dream."

Acreon roused himself a bit more, blinking at the sight of her.

"Sure. Of course," he yawned.

"Thanks," Eelesia replied, smiling at the half-asleep boy.

Worming her way under the blankets, Eelesia stretched herself out, pressing her side along the length of Acreon's body. Her hand found his, an automatic thing, as they shifted around a little, snuggling closer.

Acreon squeezed her hand reasuringly, and was asleep again, Eelesia following right after.

Eelesia dreamed again, this time that she was flying, riding the flow of a great luminous storm, catching glimpses of vastly varriant landscapes through the occasional break in the rolling clouds. It was exhilerating.

* * *

In the morning, Acreon was the first to wake, and his return to consiousness was followed shortly by something most closely resembling panic. He recoiled from Eelesia's embrace, sitting as close to the edge of the bed as he could as he waited anxiously to feel the magic return to him.

Minutes passed, and the flows of mana remained absent.

"Oh crap," Acreon whimpered.

Eelesia stirred then, stretching and yawning hugely. She blinked her eyes open and looked around, staring curiously when she saw Acreon sitting stiffly on the edge of the bed. It took a moment for his pained expression to register with her, but when it did, her own eyes went wide.

"Oh! Oh no, I didn't think-I'm so sorry!" Eelesia said, folding her arms tight across her chest and hunching guiltily.

"Its not coming back!" Acreon exclaimed.

"I'm sorry!"

"You should be!" Acreon snapped at her.

Eelesia looked down to hide the welling of tears. This was the first time they had ever raised their voices to each other. Eelesia wanted to kick herself violently for letting that stupid nightmare get to her.

"You'll be okay in a few hours, right?" Eelesia offered. "It's only supposed last for how long we were touching."

Acreon stared at her and forced himself to take a deep breath. "Right. You're probably right..."

"Do you want me to go get Khet?" Eelesia asked hesitantly.

"We'll tell him later," Acreon sighed, shaking his head.

"I'm really sorry, Acreon," Eelesia whispered.

"I suppose it won't kill me to go without magic for a day," Acreon said, the anger fading from his eyes. "Just don't ever sleep with me again, okay?"

Eelesia nodded, staring at her hands. "Sorry," she mumbled again.


	4. The Little Death

(Fair Warning. The M-Rating kicks in hard in this chapter.)

* * *

**~THE LITTLE DEATH~**

On a far distant world hanging broken in the Twisting Nether, a great floating fortress of felfire and dark metals drifted in the white void. It's centerpiece was a great glowing dome ringed by six black towers. Extending each to the north, south, east, and west, were massive platforms on which hjiacked Legion teleporters hummed ominiously.

Suspended in the very center, supported by thin bridges from the tops of each of the six towers, was the heart of the fortress. It rested at the very top of the energy dome, and from within it, the creature called Ceraloni gazed out over her domain.

She was elven in her features, skin a pinkish lavender, ears thin and undecided in their curvature. Her body was lithe and strong, riding the line perfectly between slender and muscled. The thin green fabric that clung to her shoulders swept down her body like mist, leaving little to the imagination. The green matched her eyes, smoldering with felfire. Her hair was long and flowing too, the most peculiar shade between silver and gold.

Her graceful shape could pass for a large High Elf or a petite Night Elf, and brought to mind thoughts of a half-breed. Indeed that is what she claimed to be, though she was born of neither elven race, in truth.

Ceraloni looked to a brightening in the south. The teleporter there pulsed with fel energy, warning of an incoming traveler. Her feltech golems were returning with new specimens for her. They were ingenius creations, she thought. Mechanical beings based on the same principles as the giant Felreavers, but agile, stealthy, and made for a purpose beyond pure destruction. She called them Felpods.

Each Felpod's core body was a hollow eight-sided crystal, big enough to contain a large humanoid. Wraped around this body, lenthwise like a wreath, was jointed felsteel from the sides of which grew two enlongated arms with sharp, grasping hands. From the bottom came a thin, prehensile tail twice the length of the body it was attatched to.

The three evil-looking mechanical creatures levitated upwards, tails trailing behind them like streamers, as they carried their prey to Ceraloni's inner lair.

Ceraloni turned, stepping lightly from the balcony that circled her sanctum beneath the windows. She floated gracefully to the lower floor, gown billowing around her like fel mist. Her bare feet touched the smooth metal and she waited, utterly serene.

The floor was divided by shoulder-height partitions into three sections, one of which was shrouded behind a forcefield. The other two sections each had five "workstations." On the one side were flat metal tables designed for the cutting up of flesh for study. On the other side were raised horizontal cylinders with padding and restraints, for live subjects.

The Felpods hovered up through the large porthole in the center of the floor, slowly turning to face their mistress and assuming a humble posture as they loomed over her.

Her gaze pierced, examining the specimens imprisoned within her creations. Each hung motionless in the preserving gel that filled their crystal prisons, all clothing and hair already dissolved away.

"Release. Disection table three," Ceraloni commanded, her eyes directing the order.

The leftmost Felpod moved silently but for the deep and subtle hum of the magic that powered it. It cracked open down the middle and folded backwards, lowering a limp brown humanoid onto the hard metal of the third table.

A male orc, Ceraloni noted. She would return to cut that one up after dealing with the ones she planned to revive.

The empty Felpod drifted down and away, leaving the remaining two behind.

Ceraloni's eyes widened as she examined the inert form within the frontmost Felpod.

"Oh my. A Shivan!" she breathed. "Release. Bed one," she commanded.

The eight-limbed, dusk-skinned she-demon was draped face-down atop a padded cylinder. As the Felpod moved away, Ceraloni knelt to secure the Shivan's wrists and ankles in manacles on the floor. She then turned a crank that slowly raised the padded tube, pulling the demon's body taut against the restraints.

Ceraloni stood, sliding her hand up the Shivan's leg and over her supple ass, up to the demon's back, directly over her stilled heart.

She thrust a burst of fel energy into the demon's body, restarting her heart and healing any internal injury. The Shivan began to breathe once more.

Ceraloni turned to the final Felpod, keeping her hand on the Shivan's slender back.

"Oh, excellent," Ceraloni noted. "Well done my pet. You've brought me a Succubus."

She had the final Felpod deposite the blue-skinned creature on the second disection table, though she was still undecided as to what she wanted to do with the Succubus.

She mused over it for a while, until a stirring from behind distracted her. The movement was followed by a wild gasp as the Shivan regained consiousness.

"Where am... what? Release me!" the demon roared, struggling against the manicles.

Ceraloni felt the demon drawing the fel energies into herself and quickly moved to quash the Shivan's magical efforts.

"You'll adress me with respect, demon," Ceraloni told her, her soft voice edged with both fire and ice. "I am the Lady Ceraloni. I am supreme."

The Shivan froze with fear, shivering at the unfamiliar emotion. "You are powerful," she admited in a terrified whisper.

"That's better, Shivan."

The demon twisted her neck to get a better look at her captor. She inhaled sharply, striken by the glorious being standing over her. Ceraloni could sense another spike of fear from the Shivan. She let the demon get a good read on her. Let her quail before overwhelming power. Let the fear turn to respect. It was so easy to win over a demon.

"I am the warder Raesindra," said the Shivan, breathless. "Why have you brought me here?"

"Warder?" Ceraloni asked, ignoring the question. "That is an interesting title."

Raesindra hesitated only briefly. "I... I am one of many, my purpose is the... the bolstering of the ranks. Creating new demons."

"What sort of demons?"

"I breed and fel-imbune Sayaad," the Shivan told her.

Ceraloni grinned widely. "You make Succubi, do you. That is most... appropriate."

Soft laughter peeled through the sanctum.

"How do you mean?" Raesindra asked nervously.

A wide smile slid slowly across Ceraloni's face as her fingertips glided slowly down Raesindra's spine.

"What do you know of orgasms, Raesindra?"

The Shivan's breath caught as she struggled to maintain composure in her very compromised position. Ceraloni's silken fingertips reached the base of her spine, skimming the top of her supple buttox. Raesindra fought to keep from squirming.

"They... they're... the weakness... of lesser beings," the demon breathed.

Ceraloni chuckled. "Come now, is that really your opinion?"

"Yes. And I've never succumbed. My wards would be much harder to manage if I was vunerable to their ways," Raesindra claimed.

Ceraloni's light touch vanished from Raesindra's skin, replaced by a sigh that was almost pitying.

"You lie to yourself, Shivan," Ceraloni whispered. "Even at arms length, I feel the tension in your body."

Raesindra twisted her neck to look questioningly at her captor. Ceraloni slid her fingertips around the demon's ass again, skittering over her skin and lightly tracing the shape of Raesindra's pale slit. The demon's felfire eyes bulged.

"You've never been touched, have you?" Ceraloni asked softly. "In all your countless years, not even by your own hand."

"Never," Raesindra choked out, unable to stop the tremor that ran through her taut flesh as Ceraloni's fingertips traced over her netherlips.

"I'm going to change that, you know," Ceraloni told her.

"W-what?" Raesindra gasped. "No you'll not ruin me!"

"There isn't anything at all you'll be able to do about it," Ceraloni said, emphasizing her point by dragging the tip of her middle finger up the center of Raesindra's slit.

The demon struggled desperately against the jolt of pleasure this caused. Ceraloni's touch vanished again as she moved to the center of the circle of "beds" to align a wicked-looking device.

"You really don't have a prayer, you know," Ceraloni said, positioning the device. "This room is specifically designed to wring orgasms from the unwilling."

Raesindra's heart thudded unevenly in fright. "Why?"

"You know, in a way you're almost right about orgasms being a weakness, even if you don't understand why." Ceraloni smiled widely. "I find it strangly amusing how scarecely the power of orgasm is recognized. Did you know, that when you experience a strong one, there is an instant of time during which you are literally dead?"

Raesindra's eyes bulged and she gave a little shake of her head.

"Yes, and this is true of all sexual beings across all worlds," Ceraloni told her. "An interesting thing, that. Which is why I have been studying the phenomenon for some time now."

"To what ultimate goal?" Raesindra asked.

"I suppose, in your line of work, it would be fruitless to first make you watch what I'm about to do to you," Ceraloni mused. "You would be very familiar with sexual sights, would you not?"

Raesindra only nodded, still intent on her question. "But why?" she asked again.

"The opposite, then," Ceraloni decided, ignoring the demon as she pushed Raesindra's face down into a face-shaped cutout and secured her there.

Now the only thing Raesindra could see was the inside of the hollow, tubular "bed."

"So, you ask what my purpose is," Ceraloni finally said, moving around behind Raesindra again. "In the instant of orgasmic death, you become vunerable to certain things. You see, just as with true death, orgasmic death frees the spirit from the protection of the body, presenting all sort of opportunities."

"Opportunities?" Raesindra asked, her trembling voice muffled.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to tamper with your spirit," Ceraloni reassured her. "At least, not today. What would be the fun in that?"

"Fun?"

"What is the point in educating you if you are unable to reflect on it?" Ceraloni asked rhetoically.

Raesindra shivered.

Ceraloni cupped the Shivan's loins gently in her palm, easily able due to the gap built into the end of the "bed" that left the Shivan's crotch unobstructed from thigh to thigh and all the way to her waist.

"Also, I must admit it gives me a certain voyueristic gratification to watch someone be broken by pleasure, instead of pain," Ceraloni said as she finished aligning the pleasuring device. There was a click as it locked into place.

This device was also of Ceraloni's creation. Set up as it was, to be used on a female, it had six primary components.

The first was a thick phalic shaft with a bulbus head, on a drive shaft, which was currently poised less than an inch from Raesindra's quivering pussy.

The second, a thiner phalus with a tappered tip and three subtle bulges along its length, took up a similar position at the virgin demon's barely-visible anus.

Three of the components were identical. Soft, flexible sucker-tubes that had the texture of tongue-flesh. Ceraloni attached one to Raesindra's tiny clit, and the other two to Raesindra's nipples. Raesindra yelped out loud when her clit slipped into the little tube, and that was only the mild, constant suction needed to keep the tube in place.

Lastly, all the components secreted an oily compound, making them unbelieveably slippery.

"How do you feel, Raesindra?" Ceraloni asked, positioning herself at the controls of the device.

"Please don't do this to me," the demon pleaded.

"Why not?" Ceraloni asked.

"I don't want to be a slave to the flesh," Raesindra whimpered.

"Poor creature. Don't you realize you already are? That you always were?" Ceraloni shook her head.

Raesindra knew the glorious Lady was right. She just didn't want to admit it. It broke her demon heart that she was so much less immune that she'd thought. What Ceraloni was doing to her should not be affecting her, but it was. Even the Lady's featherlight touches were more than Raesindra could handle; there was no way she'd be able to resist this wicked machine. She strained futiley against her bonds.

Raesindra's thoughts were scattered to the winds the very second Ceraloni started.

The tube attatched to Raesindra's clit gave off a short burst of vibration and it knocked the breath right out of her. Before she could even gasp, the suction on her nipples increased sharply and eased off as a burst of vibration hit one nipple, then the other.

"Aah Aaah," Raesindra gasped.

"See, you like it already, and this is just the warm up," Ceraloni smirked.

Raesindra couldn't respond. It took everything she had just to breathe right as the tip of the tapered phalus poked into her bottom and another burst of suction tugged her nipples. A gentle wave of suction on her clit followed, and the inch-deep tapered tip began to rotate back and forth in her ass.

Her body writhed, already disobedient, and she was suddenly very very aware of the void around her pussy. She could feel how there was distinctly not anything touching her pussy, more acutely than she'd ever felt anything before in her life.

Twin bursts of vibration hit her nipples again.

Raesindra choked on a gasp as a sudden burst of vibration came from the phalus in her ass. Before she could recover, the twisting sped and she could feel the nobby length slowly push into her.

Up to the first knob. The second. All the way as the third knob popped inside her. She couldn't breathe. A burst of vibration hit her deep inside her rectum, then hit her clit, hit her nipples twice, hit her clit again and ended with another burst from the twisting phalus shoved up her ass.

Raesindra dragged air in through her teeth, her mind reduced to a single thought: the torturous absense around her pussy. The flesh was engorged, dripping wet and begging to be penetrated. The word "horny" didn't even come close to describing the state Raesindra's eons of denial had wrought on her body.

"Please!" Raesindra begged, not even sure what she was begging for anymore, but it came out as no more than a wordless moan anyway.

The suction on her nipples intensified again, alternating left and right in a pulsing rythmn, and a subtle buzzing so slight she might have imagined it lanced her clit.

Something finally touched the burning flesh of her pussy.

Raesindra twitched against her bonds with a wordless cry. The feeling was so intense after such deprevation; the bulbus head of the bigger phalus pushed into her opening, its shocking girth squeezing through her lips and stretching her moist flesh.

As the the thick phalus plowed slowly into her, finally coming to rest against her cervix as the muscles in her loins grappled with the massive intruder, the thinner knobed phalus in her ass pulled out. A pulse of suction hit her clit exactly as each knob slid through her rosebud.

Raesindra choked on a gasp again, passed the point of coherency.

The alternating suction on her nipples intensified, sucking hard on one while hitting the other with a burst of vibration, then switching. It seemed to be timed with her pounding heart.

A stronger, constant buzzing struck her clit as the pulses of suction sped up.

Then the tapered phalus plunged into her ass again, spinning rapidly this time. Raesindra shrieked loudly, her body shaking uncontrollably.

The bulbous head that pressed into her cervix was suddenly vibrating as the thick shaft began to fuck her with short, quick thrusts inside her. Her ass was worked in synchroneity, the third knob of the thinner spinning phalus popping in and out of her anus as the thicker shaft stretched the walls of her pussy.

Everything suddenly sped up, and Raesindera felt... something... spreading through her body like fire, tendrils of heat reaching from her loins, crawling up her spine, down her legs, through her chest and limbs.

She careened over the edge, thoroughly overwhelmed by the total stimulation. A scream of ecstasy bubbled up from her chest and then cut off as her lungs locked down, violent spasms rippling through her body as her loins convulsed on the relentless fucking machine.

The machinations slowed, lessened, but did not stop until the last spasm had been wrung from Raesindra's now-limp body.

By the time Ceraloni shut the machine off, Raesindra had passed out in the wake of her first orgasm.

Ceraloni leaned against the "bed" next to Raesindra's, eyes studying the panting, unconsious demon. With a whispered syllable, her emerald gown desolved into the mist it resembled.

Nude, Ceraloni slid her hands over her own flesh, cupping her breasts and sliding a hand down between her legs. She poked her middle finger into her folds, parting the outer lips and unlocking the wetness that had built up from watching Raesindra's deflowering.

Once her fingers were covered, she rammed two into her pussy and two into her ass with her thumb resting on her clit. She slammed her hand into her loins with quick, violent movements, quickly bringing herself to orgasm.

Her pussy and ass clamped down on her fingers and her legs wobbled. Ceraloni leaned back on her elbow to catch her breath as her own spasms subsided.

Ceraloni took a steadying breath, magicked her gown back into place, and bent to release Raesindera from her shackles. She carried the Shivan's lanky form to the lavishly furnished cages where she kept her live specimens. Placing the limp demon's body among the cusions, Ceraloni smiled to herself.

She'd lied to the demon, of course.

During Raesindra's orgasm, she'd taken advantage of the orgasmic death to delve into the demon's spirit and make a few changes to the way Raesindra felt about certain things. Ceraloni doubted Raesindra would even notice at first; she knew better than to attempt unsubtle alterations.

Ceraloni returned to her balcony with a smirk on her face.

* * *

Raesindra came to slowly, with a soft groan at the suprisingly pleasant ache in her limbs and loins. She couldn't remember ever feeling so utterly satisfied. So relaxed. Pains she hadn't even known she'd had, had left her body in the wake of her experience.

She didn't want to move, so instead she thought.

Her earlier conviction seemed foolish now. How could such sensations be meant only for the low? She tried to remember why she'd been so convinced, but all of her reasons seemed flimsy and false.

Raesindra burned with a sudden, powerful resentment for the Legion and her former wards. Nothing she had accomplished as a Warder was worth the countless years of celebacy and ignorance. Had it ever even been nessesary in the first place? She couldn't even remember where or from whom the notion had originated.

A frown creased her brow, and she sighed, opening her eyes.

Ceraloni stared back.

Raesindra gaped in suprise. Ceraloni was hanging motionless in the air above the demon, floating silently as she watched Raesindra, face smooth and unreadable. She was naked.

The demon inhaled sharply. The sight of the Lady Ceraloni was doing strange things to her body. Against all reason, she felt a sudden yearning to touch the Lady's skin.

But before the surprised Shivan could speak or move, Ceraloni sank gracefully down ontop of her. Their breasts smooshed into each other, warm and soft, as the Lady's elven body melted into the Shivan's. Ceraloni's lips came down on Raesindra's, also soft and warm. A warmth that seemed to seep into her very bones, banishing all thoughts of resistance.

Raesindra's six hands moved of their own accord, coming to rest lightly on the Lady's shoulders, hips, and perfectly round butt. The feel of Ceraloni's skin under her fingertips sent the same tingling warmth up her arms.

Raesindra was fairly sure she was loosing her mind, but it didn't worry her in the slightests. That she wasn't worried, worried her a little, but she could barely get that far in her train of thought with the intoxicating warmth of Ceraloni's body wreaking havoc on her.

A soft moan escaped into Ceraloni's mouth as the sensations ignited a deeper yearning in her loins.

This was so different from the brutal assailment of her sex from before. Better in some ways, but shockingly, not in every way. By the nether! She actually had enjoyed that hideous ordeal.

Raesindra's hands traced the curves of the lithe being laying on top of her, lips moving in response to the Lady's gentle kiss. She was afraid to do more than that, afraid to take an active roll, not only because she had no idea what she was doing, but because she didn't want to upset the glorious Lady. Even so distracted as she was, Raesindra could sense Ceraloni's vastly greater fel power.

Raesindra was at the Lady's mercy, every second without exception. Again, the anxiety the demon expected to feel at this thought was conspicously absent.

Ceraloni's hands traced up Raesindra's flanks, and the demon lost her train of thought again as Ceraloni's tongue traced around her lips.

The warm, soothing embrace continued for some while longer, and then without warning Ceraloni was gone from Raesindra's arms.

"What?" the demon moaned, looking around dizzily and hugging herself.

"I'm releasing you," Ceraloni sighed, leaning casually against the frame of the open cage door.

Raesindra sat up, staring blankly.

"Come on," Ceraloni gestured.

Raesindra couldn't move. Couldn't even form a coherent thought.

Ceraloni inclined her head and placed a kind smile on her face.

"Return to your Legion. I won't stop you," Ceraloni lied.

Raesindra climbed slowly to her feet, still completely at a loss. With a timid lope, she slid passed Ceraloni, out of the cage, but got no further.

Ceraloni waited patienly, displaying no hint of the spell she held ready to obliterate Raesindra if the demon made the wrong choice.

Raesindra turned back to Ceraloni. "I find myself not wanting to leave," the Shivan admitted.

Ceraloni merely raised one shimmery eyebrow.

Raesindra sank to her knees. "I would serve you, my Lady, if you'd accept my fealty."

"And why should I?" Ceraloni bluffed.

"I could help you. Our fields of expertise are not so different, if you think about it," Raesindra explained, the idea occuring to her only now. "After all, Succubi do much the same thing you do, only in their case they merely use the instant of vunerability to consume their victims, but it is the same phenomenon!"

Ceraloni smiled a genuine smile. She heard the spark of wonder and curiosity in the Shivan's voice. Raesindra was hers.

"An interesting theory," Ceraloni said. "Perhaps I will allow you to aid me in exploring it."

Raesindra bowed her head. "Thank you."

Ceraloni was suddenly standing over the kneeling demon. She put her hand under the Shivan's chin and lifted her to her feet. Ceraloni kissed her fearcely, then, and it was all Raesindra could do to cling to her mistress' elven body with six slender arms and not collapse in a heap as her lips parted against Ceraloni's.

Eventually they pulled apart. Raesindra was breathing heavily, though Ceraloni still seemed utterly serene.

"I'll put you in the south tower, I think," Ceraloni said, pointing to the southern bridge. "It has the nicest quarters."

"Where do you sleep?" Raesindra asked breathlessly.

Ceraloni chuckled. "I don't."

Raesindra didn't know how to respond to that. Ceraloni slid her arm around the Shivan's waist and towed her to the southern bridge at a lesurely pace.

"I think you're right, you know," Ceraloni told her new servant. "About how Succubi consume their victims. We need to get our hands on a few of them to study, don't you agree?"

"Yes, mistress," Raesindra replied. "And that's something I can help with."

"I thought you might."

Raesindra nodded. "I can show the best places to send your golems, but..."

"Yes?"

"I think it will ultimately be more fruitful if we had an uncorrupted Sayaad," Raesindra told her.

Ceraloni nodded thoughtfully.

They reached the other end of the bridge then, and Ceraloni followed Raesindra into the tower. It was a big, open space, all one room. A massive bed stood in the center and all around the edge of the room were bookshelves and tables and cabinets.

"Everything you find in this room is yours so long as you serve me," Ceraloni said, floating up from the ground and arcing gracefully through the air to settle, feather-light, on the big bed with her hands behind her head.

"Thank you, mistress," Raesindra breathed. She moved around to the side of the bed and opened her mouth to say something else, hesitating.

Ceraloni gave her an encouraging look.

"The best place to find an uncorrupted Sayaad, is the valley on their homeworld the Legion uses to breed them," Raesindra said. "But the valley is warded, so... I believe we will have to capture our Sayaad personally."

Ceraloni's expression didn't change. "Oh," was all she said. She patted the bed next to her.

As Raesindra moved to obey, she noticed something for the first time. "You have no navel, mistress," she said, suprised.

The Lady only smirked. She didn't deign to explain.

"I want you to on your hands and knees, facing away from me, with your knees on either side of my torso," Ceraloni told her servant.

Raesindra complied. She felt very exposed, as she stared at her mistress' shins, but oddly jittery too. Excited. She did her best to breath evenly.

Raesindra felt Ceraloni shift behind her, and suddenly something incredibly soft and warm melded to her pussy. She inhaled sharply, taken off guard. Unable to help herself, Raesinda glanced over her shoulder and saw Ceraloni's face burried in her loins.

The Lady's soft lips and nimble tongue moved against Raesindra's hot netherlips, gently parting the moist flesh just as they had Raesindra's mouth. The Shivan squirmed against Ceraloni's face, letting out a soft moan as she felt her mistress' mouth coax the wetness from within her, sending waves of heat rolling through her slender body.

"Wh...what aa...are you do..oing?" Raesindra asked, trembling with pleasure.

Instead of answering, Ceraloni's legs suddenly rose and locked around Raesindra's neck, forcing her face down into her mistress' crotch. Her cry of suprise was muffled by the Lady's elven netherlips as she fell.

Raesindra breathed in the scent of her, tasting the moisture leaking from Ceraloni's flesh. It was like the very best of the Lady's flavor and scent, concentrated, refined, and it filled her with a new kind of warmth.

Desire.

With a low moan, Raesindra's lips parted the Lady's flesh, kissing the inner folds. Her tongue snaked into the wet confines, lapping up Ceraloni's sweet nectar.

Meanwhile, Ceraloni's sinuous tongue lashed out again and again, worming into Raesindra's hole and slipping out again to flick or squeeze her throbbing clit. Raesindra moaned breathlessly into Ceraloni's dripping loins, her inexperienced tongue somehow doing its job perfectly.

Ceraloni's hands gripped Raesindra's supple ass as she drove her tongue into the Shivan's fleshy tunnel. Raesindra squirmed in her grip, her body twitching in anticipation.

Ceraloni's own arousal reached the breaking point as Raesindra's muffled moans drove her over the edge. Her body gave a subtle tremor as she sighed in bliss.

Raesindra seemed to be riding the edge, her body shaking as the convulsions threatened to overtake her at any second. Ceraloni drove her tongue in as deep as it could reach, worming around as she dragged her lower lip over Raesindra's clit and sucked.

The Shivan cried out as her pulsating pussy sent shocks of pleasure throughout her body. The orgasm overtook her and she collapsed in a fit of estatic spasms, her legs splaying out to the sides as her twitching body fell atop Ceraloni's. Her hips continued to buck uncontrollably, grinding her mound against the Lady's belly.

Raesindra panted, her face pressed to Ceraloni's leg, as the subsiding tremors left her body limp atop her mistress, dripping juices onto Ceraloni's pink skin.

Raesindra didn't remember deciding to move, but she found herself crawling up to rest her head on Ceraloni's soft chest, one leg thrown over her mistress' so that they each had their twitching pussies pressed to the other's thigh. Raesindra found herself stroking Ceraloni's hair.

"Rest now," the Lady commanded. "You'll need your strength. Tomorrow you're going to bring me a Sayaad."


	5. Reunion

**~REUNION~**

It was about four and a half years later, back on Azeroth. Eelesia had grown up quite a bit, her frame stretching out and beginning to hint at the curves of a grown woman. She'd let her hair grow a bit; it fell nearly to the small of her back now, a perfect curtain of midnight. She still dressed simply, in a deep purple silk shirt that matched Acreon's eyes and simple black pants.

She was wraped in a dark grey traveling cloak to keep the road dust off, hunched over the thick book of schematics she'd gotten in Gnomeregan as she sat beside Halia on the driver's bench of the Kalistrak's favorite wagon. Ahead and behind the caravan stretched, winding out of sight in the mountain pass. They ought to be skirting the edge of the Redridge Mountains, just then.

A foreboding mist clung to the rocks, and it was dark as dusk even though the sun hung overhead. But it was a well-traveled road, and none of the travelers bound for Stormwind were worried.

Eelesia and Halia were returning from Dun Morogh, from an engineering covention. It had been an exciting week. Eelesia and Halia had gotten to not only see, but examine dozens of fantastical gadgets. They'd even gotten to witness the unveiling of a mockup for an underground railway system that would make the long road they now traveled obsolete.

Acreon and Khet were not with them, of course. They were still in Dalaran for the summer. After Acreon's thirteenth birthday, it was decided that he'd participate in an aprentiship to the Kirin Tor. Acreon had been excited about it, so Khet had escorted him to the magic city. They hoped Acreon would impress the Archmages enough that he might be granted status in the mageocracy.

Eelesia was sure he would.

She'd had to stay behind with Halia, obviously. It would have been impossible to hide her little quirk in a city like Dalaran.

Still, she missed him.

Eelesia remembered hugging Acreon goodbye. It was the first time they'd been apart for more than a day or two since they'd first met in Moonbrook. Eelesia had found not having Acreon around to be suprisingly unpleasant. She didn't seem to be able to get used to the fact that he wasn't there, and she constantly wondered what he was doing at any given moment.

The three-week trip to Dun Morogh and the engineering convention was a welcome distraction, and Gnomeregan was quite fasinating in its own right. Eelesia was positivly bursting to get back to the workshop and try some of the her new, inspired ideas.

Yet all that was a sideline to the simple fact that it had been over a month since she'd seen Acreon. She glanced up at Halia. The older woman had to be misssing her son, too, and Khet as well. Eelesia sighed. Acreon and Khet would be home in another two weeks; unlike most travelers, they wouldn't have to waste any time on travel.

Eelesia had learned the basics, but portal spells were still way beyond her ability. Half the time she still couldn't even get a ball of fire to cohere to itself. Although, that may have had more to do with lack of interest in the Arcane, rather than any lack of intellect or potential. Afterall, she'd proven herself a very clever engineer, and the mechanics of science were not so different from the mecahnics of the arcane.

She knew Acreon appriciated that. He was probably the only mage who carried a laser-cutter instead of a spellknife.

Eelesia wondered what he was doing. She also wondered at how absurd it was that Acreon's absence affected her so negativly. Why did his absence leave such a big hole in her chest? It was the strangest thing. She couldn't close her eyes without seeing his violet ones smiling back at her.

It was annoying. Eelesia doubted Acreon was spending his big exciting stint in Dalaran dwelling on her. He knew she would be there when he got back.

Eelesia sighed.

Suddenly, the wagon jolted to a stop, breaking her reprieve.

"What's going on?" Eelesia asked, blinking and straightening up.

"Don't know," Halia muttered.

Behind and ahead of them, other travelers were climbing atop their vehicles trying to see what had caused the procession to halt. The twenty-odd crossbow and swordsmen serving as caravan guards were suddenly alert, focusing on the mist-shrouded pass ahead.

Everyone was quiet.

There was a peculiar sound in the air, a sound that made Eelesia think of feathers.

As she often did, Eelesia followed an instinct she didn't quite understand and slid off the driver's bench, tucking down and bracing herself under it.

"Eelesia, what are you doing?" Halia demanded in a whisper.

Just then, the sharp crack of breaking rock echoed through the pass, and the air was suddenly full of avian screeching.

"Harpys!" a guard bellowed, and the stillness broke.

Screams of fright sounded up and down the pass as travelers dove for cover. A few brave or foolish souls drew swords and stood up on the roofs of their wagons to slash at the thick fog.

The Harpys descended.

The pale sunlight outlined dozens of winged shapes whooshing through the air above.

Halia had ducked down next to Eelesia. "Light! Its an entire flock!" she gasped.

Eelesia watched the shapes zip through the sky, and thought it odd that the bulk of them were staying high up, powering through the air like they were... like they were fleeing something.

Not all of them, though. Some swooped low to claw at the travelers. A squad of three, already flying low, swerved straight into one of the foolish travelers waving a sword from atop his wagon.

The sword went flying from his hand, clattering to the ground somewhere unseen as its owner was dragged into the sky by two of the nude winged women while the third locked her legs around his waist and began shredding his clothes, and more than a bit of skin along with them. His screams echoed off the rocks as he vanished into the mist.

After that the other fighters hugged the ground, leaving the battle to the crossbowmen.

The air was full of the sound of flapping wings, and the twang of crossbows; crys of battle and the answering bestial screams.

Eelesia kept still and quiet. A new sound came to her ears, then. A low, almost mechanical, hum.

An explosion rocked the canyon, obliterating the head of the caravan in a massive cloud of fire and dust. Charred body-parts, human, dwarven, and harpy, rained down on the pass. Muffled crys echoed through the mist, many of them cut off suddenly and sickeningly. Arrowheads clanged against something metalic.

Eelesia ducked as a crunching sound was followed by an entire wagon tumbling through the air, its occupants screaming, until it smashed to splinters against a rock face thirty feet over Eelesia's head.

More arrows striking metal. More screams abrubtly ended.

And much closer, shockingly close overhead, was the sound of Harpy claws scraping over metal.

Eelesia looked up and quailed. A great shadow blotted out the sun, looming like a giant spectre with a deep, resonant mechanical hum. Halia's hand found hers and she squeezed it desperatly, far more afraid than her calm exterior betrayed.

Suddenly, a great black metalic claw shot out of the mist and smashed into the Kalistrak's wagon. Eelesia and Halia screamed as they were thrown free of the driver's bench, landing hard on the packed dirt. The wagon crunched into the canyon wall, cleaved in two by the looming spectre.

The thing sank out of the mist, huge and angular. Its body was a hollow crystal, with long metallic arms and tail. The thing hovered towards them, casually throwing another wagon out of the way.

Eelesia cowered against the rocks. Halia was unconsious.

A second metal horror glided overhead. This one's body-crystal contained a sleeping Harpy.

The first great metal creature planted its blade-like fingers in the ground on either side of Eelesia and Halia, and bent down as though it were examining them. With a faint hiss, a fissure appeared on the front of the thing as its crystal core opened. It removed one metallic hand from the ground and slid its fingers under Halia's unconsious body.

"No!" Eelesia screamed suddenly, taking herself by suprise.

With a sudden rage, the ravenhaired girl got her feet under her and launched herself at the metallic horror's shoulder as though she was trying to tackle it.

What no one present on that day could have guessed, is that the move would work.

Eelesia slammed into the thing, and at her touch it recoiled, dropping Halia and falling backwards. Eelesia's momentum carried her with it as it fell backwards onto the road. She clung to its metal frame as it hit the ground with a massive thud, dust billowing out around it. Its arms fell limply at its sides.

It was dead. The girl's touch had killed it.

Eelesia found herself sprawled ontop of the metal monstrosity. If anybody had been watching, they would have sworn to witnessing a thirteen-year-old girl successfully overpower the monster that had so casually thrown full-sized wagons into mountainsides.

Luckily, the mist had hidden Eelesia's improvised heroics and she retained the presense of mind to scramble off the dead monstrosity and back to Halia's side before anyone saw her.

The battle died down. It was utterly silent in the pass for several heartbeats.

Then the babble broke out. Cheers of victory. Crys of relief. Sobs of grief.

Eelesia heard footsteps. "Over here! I think she's hurt," she called to whoever it was.

A couple of guards found them, one bending over Halia. "I think she was just knocked out," he said, scooping her up.

Another tried to pick Eelesia up, but she pushed him away. "I can walk fine. Help Halia," she told the guard.

Halia was laid down with the other injured.

Eelesia sat next to her with her legs folded. She shivered violently for a few seconds, a delayed reaction to the fear. What was that thing?

Despite the terror, a part of her wanted to go back and take it apart, learn how it worked; she was sure the thing had been mechanical, though it had to have been at least partly magical or her little quirk wouldn't have killed it. A golem of some sort? Who would make such a thing?

Having no answers, Eelesia wrapped her cloak around herself, rocking slightly as she closed her eyes and wished for Acreon.

* * *

Acreon leaned out over the city, luminous purple eyes tracing the shapes of Dalaran's graceful spires. The sky was wonderous. From the highest tower in the Violet Citadel, one could actually look down on the clouds.

A knock on the door behind him made Acreon turn. The door slid open, and the light of the day revealed a slender ravenhaired girl standing on the threshold, hands clasped at her waist.

"Eelesia!" Acreon exclaimed happily.

The girl's perfect, unassuming lips parted slightly in a shy smile. She reached for him, stepping out onto the blacony. Her icy blue eyes blazed happiness, emphasizing her smile.

Acreon moved to take her into his arms, grinning boyishly.

Something stuck to his face.

Acreon groaned, rolling onto his back and stubbornly refusing to wake up. The pale boy with wavy black hair stuck his arms under his pillow and tried to sink back into the dream. A futile effort.

Eventually he gave up with a sigh, admitting defeat by opening his eyes.

He was greeted by the familiar sight of the celling of his room in the Legerdemain Lounge. Every damn night for the whole six weeks Acreon had been in Dalaran, he'd had the same dream. Well, not exactly the same. The details changed each time, so he never guessed he was dreaming until he woke up. Which only made it worse.

Acreon continued to stare at the celling, wondering what Eelesia was doing just then. He wondered if she'd laugh at him if she knew he was constantly seeing her out of the corner of his eye, always rather inappropriately dissapointed when he turned to look and saw a stranger.

He knew she probably wasn't spending every spare moment dwelling on him, so it irked him that every time he closed his eyes he saw her icy blue ones staring back at him. Acreon sighed. He just couldn't get used to her not being around.

The dreams weren't helping, either.

With a groan, Acreon rolled out of bed and got dressed. He wore enbroidered black pants and an icy blue silk overshirt that had become his favorite. His hair stuck up like it had never heard of gravity so he paused a moment to run his fingers through it, muttering a spell as he did that smoothed it out.

He studied his reflection. The casually kempt splay of wavy black hair atop his head stood in sharp contrast to the pale skin of his boyish face. His limbs were slim and graceful from the steady physical growth of a thirteen-year-old boy, or maybe inspite of it.

Acreon padded down the hall to wake his father, wishing idly that these last weeks would pass in a hurry, then catching himself and frowning. He wanted to be here, damn it.

Acreon knocked at his father's door.

"Dad? You up yet?" he called, marveling at the resonant quality of his own voice, which had begun to drop over the past month. Acreon still looked like a boy, but he sounded more like a man every day. He wondered idly what Eelesia would think of his deeper voice.

When Khet didn't answer, Acreon knocked again. "Dad!"

Nothing.

Frowning, Acreon paced back to his room. Only then did he notice the note tacked to his door. A short message was scrawled in his father's hand.

_I'm at the commnunications array. Gather your things; we're going home. It's your mother._

"No details?" Acreon grumbled under his breath, already gathering his possesions.

Acreon moved purposfully, winding through the city streets towards the Citadel. He found the lifts and rode one up to the communications tower. Acreon scanned the room for his father and spotted Khet by one wall infront of a large mirror.

It wasn't his reflection in the mirror though, it was the image of someone else from the Sanctum back home. Acreon recognized the man. His name was Perdin or Durvin or Kergin or something ending with "-in." Cerjin, that was it. "...the whole line was brutally attacked," he was saying.

Acreon hurried to his father's side. "What's going on?"

"Eelesia and your mother are alive," Khet assured his son. "Their caravan was attacked."

"Attacked?" Acreon asked. "Attacked by who?"

"A Harpy flock," Cerjin reported.

"In Redridge?" Khet muttered.

"What were Harpys doing that far south?" Acreon wondered.

"I wasn't there, Misters Kalistrak, so I what I can tell you is only second-hand at best," Cerjin told them, taking a deep breath. "There are rumors."

"Rumors?" Khet pressed.

"Yes. Most of the caravan is still on the road but some of the forward scouts reached the city this morning," Cerjin told them.

"And?" Khet and Acreon demanded as one.

"There is talk of monsters in the mist," Cerjin confessed. "Great, evil things that flew without wings. It is my summation that the Harpys were chased south by these so-called monsters."

"Have there been any corroborating reports?" Khet asked.

"Not yet, but," Cerjin paused. "The rumor is, one of these things was killed during the battle. They're bringing the corpse home with them."

"Is there anything regarding my wife, specifically?" Khet asked.

"I'm sorry, no. Just that her name was not counted among the dead," Cerjin told them.

"Very well. We'll be back in Stormwind in a few hours. Thank you for reaching us," Khet sighed.

The mirror faded to a dull silver, the connection broken.

* * *

That evening, Acreon was standing at the gates of Stormwind, looking out at the forest. Several medics and a handful of healers were milling around, waiting, along with a few others who'd had loved-ones in the caravan.

"There!" someone shouted.

The head of the caravan rounded a bend and started up the last stretch of road. Acreon searched the faces for Eelesia's and his mother's.

The boldest of the healers ran out to meet the travelers.

Acreon continued to search, and felt his father's hand on his shoulder. Khet was searching the faces too.

The head of the line reached the gates, and the uninjured were ushered onwards. Acreon and Khet stayed where they were, torn between finding Eelesia and Halia sooner and not getting in the healers' way.

Three wagons and dozens of travelers had crossed the bridge when Acreon finally spotted them.

Eelesia trudged forward with a battered-looking Halia slung over her slender shoulders. She was panting with the effort of keeping Halia upright, but when Eelesia looked up and met Acreon's gaze, her stark pale face melted into pure relief, almost a mirror of his.

Khet dashed forward, and with a medic's help, carried Halia to one of the cots set up along the walls. Acreon followed, glancing back and forth between Eelesia and his mother.

Eelesia took a heaving breath. "Careful. She's pretty out of it. I think she's okay though," she said, wiping her forehead.

"Halia? Halia darling?" Khet murmured. "What happened?"

"I hit my head," the woman mumbled.

Eelesia turned to look at Acreon at the same moment he turned to look at her. Eyes of icy blue locked with vivid violet.

"Are you okay?" Acreon asked intently.

"Yeah. I will be," she said, only a flicker of suprise at his voice-change crossing her face.

In the next second, Eelesia fell into his arms. She clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder. Acreon squeezed her to his chest and she let out a shaky sigh of relief.

Acreon's breath caught, not because the world of mana had dissapeared, that was familiar and expected. No, the sensation that suddenly stayed Acreon's lungs was new and wholely unfamiliar. His heart stuttered, in a way he usually assosiated with fright, but this was the polar opposite. A kind of hypersensitivity and warmth was seeping through his body. He had to take a deep breath to steady himself.

They stepped away from each other then, out of habit more than anything else. Acreon looked and saw his own startled and slightly breathless expression mirrored on Eelesia's face.

Acreon was hit with a sudden incomprehensable urge to touch her again.

Eelesia's hand twitched toward him as though she'd had the same thought.

"Who killed it?" someone asked, refering to the glinting corpse that had just become visible through the trees.

Acreon and Eelesia both realized that they'd forgotten they were in the middle of a crowd. In tandem their heads snapped up towards the wagon carrying the dead monster up the road.

Acreon took in the size and vile mechanical shape of the thing.

"Nobody knows. No one has taken credit for the deed and nobody saw it happen. One of the dead, possibly," answered one of the caravan guard.

"It's the damnedest thing," someone else chimed in. "The monster doesn't have a scratch on it..."

Eelesia peeked guiltily over her shoulder at the speaker then glanced at the corpse again before looking back at Acreon. Acreon stared at her, his eyes widening with the silent question. Eelesia blushed and looked down, confirming his suspision.

"Wow," Acreon mouthed.

Khet stood then, facing the two thirteen-year-olds. "Eelesia? You alright?"

She nodded. "Uh, yeah I think so."

"Okay. Acreon, take her home," Khet ordered. "I'm going to stay with your mother."

Acreon nodded and took Eelesia's hand.

As always, he expected the dissapearance of mana, but again the contact also did unfamiliar things to his innards that he didn't even know how to expect. Heart thudding in his ears, he walked with Eelesia back into the city.

As soon as the crowd was thin enough, Acreon whispered, "You really killed that thing?"

Eelesia blinked, her answer coming slowly. "Uh, yeah. It was going to take Halia so I lunged at it."

Acreon tried to think through the fire that wound up his arm from the hand that held Eelesia's. "It must be a golem," he decided.

"That's what I thought," Eelesia said. "I wouldn't still be alive otherwise, but I could have sworn it was mechanical."

"Maybe its both," Acreon mused. "Like the magically-powered machines the Elves use."

"Maybe," Eelesia agreed, remembering. She shuddered.

They were on the bridge between the Trade District and the Mage Quarter. Acreon stopped and pulled the shivering girl into another hug. Heat washed through him and his breath came unevenly, but it felt... good. Not like he was being burned, but like a cold numbness was being washed out of him. A numbness he noticed only now that there was something different from it.

"I don't want to think about it," Eelesia muttered into his chest. "I'd rather not see that thing ever again, if its all the same."

"Where are they taking it?" Acreon asked.

"I don't know. I don't care."

Acreon nodded. "Okay. Come on. Let's get home."

Their hands stayed joined as they walked, but Acreon was to distracted by the unfamiliar feelings this caused to worry about how long he'd have to go without magic.

"Your voice dropped," Eelesia noted as Acreon towed her inside.

"Cool, huh?" Acreon winked.

Eelesia giggled, then cleared her throat. "Yeah."

They finally reached the Kalistrak common room and Acreon made to let go of Eelesia's hand, but she pulled them into another embrace. The warmth of Acreon's arms flooded through her like... like she'd been numb her whole life and his touch was the only thing she'd ever really felt. She didn't know what it was, but it made her not want to stop touching him.

"Don't let go of me yet," she pleaded. "If you can bear it," she added, remembering the time she'd fallen asleep with him and he'd had to go a whole day without magic. "I really missed you," she confessed.

Acreon didn't want to let go of her, so he didn't. He'd missed her a lot, too.

Eventually the twisting in Eelesia's stomach subsided, the warmth of Acreon's embrace saturating her completely. It still wasn't like before, which was odd. Being in his arms still felt different, but... it felt good. Better.

They didn't move until Khet showed up with Halia, almost an hour later. Acreon and Eelesia broke apart, seemingly waking from a daze. Khet had a steadying hand on his wife's waist. Halia looked healthy though. The healers had done their work.

"I'm so sorry I had to go and get hurt and cut your stay in Dalaran short," Halia told her son.

"It's alright, I think I made an impression," Acreon grinned.

Halia smiled. "I'm afraid our wagon didn't make it though," she said to her husband.

"About time we got a new one anyway, darling."

The family settled in around the common room, sharing lighter stories. Eelesia told Acreon all about the Deeprun project. Khet regaled Halia with tales of politics in the Violet Citadel.

They went to bed feeling safe. They were home.


	6. Feelings

**~FEELINGS~**

Eelesia dreamed.

Surprisingly, the dream wasn't a nightmare, what with the events of the past day. Eelesia swam at sea, twinkling stars filling the night with a surreal brightness. Her pale body sliced through the calm waters as she dove down in a twist, surfacing again on her back.

She caught a glimpse of a black-haired head dissapearing under the water with an echo of playful laughter. Eelesia turned in a slow circle, pretending to be wary.

Suddenly a pair of slender arms locked around her waist and pulled her under. Eelesia giggled, her limbs limp as Acreon's warm hands slid down her flanks. His touch sent spirals of heat shooting through her. She grabbed his arms, pretending to struggle, to push him away, while really trying to pull him closer.

His hands on her skin were like fire, conjuring heat deep in her flesh. It billowed in her, making Eelesia feel like her body was pulsing with it. The heat concentrated, coelesced, pulling down from her gut and up from her legs. It intensified there, becoming something almost solid before bursting like an explosion, rippling out through her body again.

Eelesia woke with a gasp, just as the morning light was beginning to peek in through the curtains.

Panting, she sank back onto her pillow, feeling the muscles around her crotch twitch. There was another warmth down there, slowly spreading. A rather less pleasant warmth.

Eelesia threw the covers off and she... she didn't scream, but it was a close thing. She was covered in blood from navel to knee. A pool of red was soaking into the sheets under her.

It took a moment for her mind to catch up with her racing heart. She wasn't in pain, and the blood didn't seem to have a source, but there was just so much of it.

Shakely, Eelesia climbed out of bed and headed for the shower. The hot water soothed her frayed nerves, and with the blood washed off she could see for certain that she wasn't injured. She stood in the stream for a few minutes after she was clean, just letting the warm water run down her body. There really hadn't been as much blood as she'd first thought.

Finally, with a sigh, she shut the water off and went looking for clothes.

Once she was dressed, Eelesia went looking for Halia. She was calmer now; she had a suspicion about the blood's origin.

Eelesia crept into the master bedroom and padded silently to Halia's side of the big canopy bed. She shook the older woman's arm.

Halia's eyes fluttered open sleepily and she mumbled, "Huh what?"

"I need your help," Eelesia whispered.

Halia blinked a few more times, then nodded and slid out of bed. They went back into the hall in silence, not wanting to disturb Khet.

"What is it?" Halia asked.

Eelesia just shook her head wordlessly and motioned for Halia to follow her. When they reached the doorway to Eelesia's room, she stopped and pointed to her bed.

Halia's eyes widened. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

Halia glanced at the bed again. "Oh. Oh!"

"I... I think I've had my flowering," Eelesia mumbled.

Halia put her arms around the girl. "You must have had quite a fright. I'm so sorry I didn't prepair you better; I know I'm not your mother but you're still my responsibility."

Eelesia smiled. "I'll forgive you as long as you help me out," Eelesia said wryly.

Halia chuckled. "You gather up your sheets there and put them down the laundry shute. I'll go and find you an Infertility Glyph.

"A what?" Eelesia asked.

Halia just held up a finger and dissapeared down the hallway.

Eelesia disposed of the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed to wait.

When Halia came back, she was carrying a small piece of wet partchment with an intricate design inked across the center.

"Turn around and lift up your shirt," Halia directed.

Eelesia complied, bunching the purple silk up around her chest, leaving her midsection bare. Halia placed the parchment on the small of Eelesia's back and smoothed it with her hands until it contoured to Eelesia's skin.

"Khet taught you how to empower runic symbols, right?" Halia asked.

"Yeah."

"Good, because I don't have the magic for a task even that simple," Halia told her unnessesarily.

"But what does an Infertility Glyph do?" Eelesia asked.

"Well, that takes a bit of explaining, so let's get it finished first," Halia said. "Ready?"

Eelesia nodded, and Halia peeled the parchment off, leaving the rune on Eelesia's skin. Eelesia touched the ink and mana together in her mind, and that was all it took. The ink's intricate shape did all the work for her. The pattern sank into her skin, becoming permanent.

As soon as it was done, her insides felt abrubtly different. Eelesia looked questioningly at Halia, who sat on the bed next to her.

"You're a woman now, Eelesia," Halia explained. "And a woman's body changes constantly, going through a cycle every thirty days or so."

Eelesia nodded. She knew this, sort of.

"During each cycle, your womb prepairs itself to harbor a new life, and at the end of each cycle, it purges itself and starts over," Halia continued. "That's were the blood comes from."

"The Glyph?" Eelesia asked.

"I was getting to that. See, an Infertility Glyph forces your body into a specific part of the cycle, and makes it stay there," Halia told her. "You won't bleed again, or be able to have children, until you disempower the rune."

"Oh," Eelesia said, immensely grateful for the existance of such magic. "What did women do before Infertility Glyphs were available?"

"There were potions and such that tried to achieve the same result, with varying levels of effectivness, but for the most part women simply bled every month and had a lot of unintentional children," Halia told her. "There are some women who still live like that today, though. Poor creatures."

Eelesia silently agreed. "Thanks, Halia."

They hugged, and that was that.

* * *

"Here, hold that there," Eelesia told Acreon, indicating a loose wire.

Acreon held the wire while Eelesia used her freed hand to fix it in place with a tiny metal clamp. With deft movements of her dexterious hands, she threaded a small silver screw through the clamp and tightened it down while Acreon held the half-finished device steady.

The two not-quite-children were working together in Halia's workshop on one of Eelesia's new ideas. Once finished, the device was supposed to be a clock that kept perfect time by sensing the movements of the planets, and then projecting the time in big numbers on a nearby wall. As it was, Acreon was helping her set the sensor device - which Eelesia had already spent the better part of the morning building from gold foil and magnetic tape - into the larger frame of the clock.

"Okay, twenty down, four to go," Eelesia commented, picking up the next tiny screw and clamp.

But when Eelesia went to secure the next wire, her hand brushed Acreon's, and the sudden burst of sensation stabbing up her arm made her fumble the tiny components.

"Damnit," she muttered, dropping onto her haunches to search the floor.

Acreon found them first.

"Here you go," he said, dropping them onto her palm.

Eelesia set them down on the table and took a step back from her work and ran a hand through her hair. She sighed. Why did that keep happening, she wondered. Eelesia wished she understood why she felt Acreon's touch so acutely; why it seemed to make her insides squirm.

"What's wrong?" Acreon asked. "Come on, we almost have this part done."

Eelesia shook her head. "I need a break."

"Okay," Acreon replied, carefully removing his hands from the frame.

They went to the wide washbasin in the corner of the room to clean their hands.

"Acreon?"

He looked at her. "What is it?"

"I..." She shook her head, struggling for words. "I keep getting... distracted... by what it feels like when you touch me," she mumbled.

"I'm sorry," Acreon offered uncertainly. He seemed about to say something else, but remained silent.

"It's not... It's like..." Eelesia tried to explain. "It's different."

Acreon wasn't sure what to say.

"It's not bad," she assured him. "Certainly nothing like what _you_ have to endure every time we touch."

"Eelesia..." he began, but she stopped him, shaking her head again.

"It's just... it feels like the only thing I've ever felt, if that makes sense. It hasn't really changed... its just so much more intense now," Eelesia admitted. "It keeps taking me off guard."

"You too?" Acreon asked quietly, carefully taking her hand in his.

Eelesia's heart skipped a beat. "Your hand... is drowning everything else out. That didn't used to happen," she murmered.

"No, it didn't." Acreon lifted their joined hands between them. "Listen. The... new intensity... aside, don't you ever feel guilty for your little quirk. Its not something you asked for, and I'd be a horrible friend to fault you for it."

Eelesia smiled at him. "I can't imagine what this," she lifted his clasped hand, "is costing you."

"You're worth it," Acreon said. He lifted her hand to his cheek and held it there for a moment. "Always have been."

Acreon brightened. "Come on, lets go down to the park, get ice cream or something."

Eelesia grinned and nodded. "But, its not just me? The way it feels when we touch, it's different for you too?"

"Yeah it is," he admited, glancing at their linked hands.

Eelesia gave herself a little shake and then grinned impishly. "Race you there?"

Acreon mirrored her grin. "Go!"

And they were running.

* * *

Only a token ammount of the summer sun's shine reached them where they sat on a log under a broad oak, enjoying icecream-in-a-cone. The tree sat in the middle of a widening river of grass framed by buildings and carts. Farther out where the buildings ended there was a small pond that stretched to the base of the foothills. Three young boys were having a splash-fight in the pond, and there were a few other park-goers around, but not enough to disturb the peacefulness of the setting.

"So, how was Dalaran, anyway?" Eelesia asked. "Do you think you'll go to school there when you come of age?"

"I don't know," Acreon told her. "Maybe. It would be an amazing place to live... but..."

"But?"

Acreon stared at his icecream. "I wouldn't like having to go months without seeing you, again," he admitted.

Eelesia sighed, silently wishing she was normal for the hundredth time. She didn't like seeing herself as an obstical for Acreon.

"The dreams would drive me mad," Acreon muttered, almost to low to hear.

"Dreams?" Eelesia asked.

Acreon met her gaze and went red. "Nothing."

Eelesia prodded him in the ribs, scooting closer to him when he dodged. "Come on, you know better than that."

"I... uh... Every night I was in Dalaran I had a dream that you had come to visit me," Acreon confessed.

"Every night?" Eelesia asked in wonder.

Acreon smiled wryly and looked away, nodding. "Every night."

When Acreon looked up again, Eelesia's face was alarmingly close. Her icy eyes pierced his, causing his heart to thump loudly.

Without really meaning to, Eelesia put her hand lightly on Acreon's jaw, only her fingertips touching his skin. His violet eyes seemed to consume her as he leaned ever so slighlty into her hand. His hand was resting on her other shoulder now; she didn't remember him putting it there.

Neither did he.

The thrumming rush of blood and the burning tendrils of sensation were making everything but the two of them fade into an obscure corner of their awareness. Their breath mingled in the small space between them.

Eelesia's overwhelmed mind couldn't form the words to wonder what was happening. No, the past and future dissapeared with the park. Her eyes fluttered, half-open and unfocused. Acreon's face was too close to look at, but she could feel him just inches away. There was a pull like magnetism, an almost tangible attraction.

Their lips opened slightly as Acreon's nose grazed her cheek and then her lips touched his. It was the whole universe in a moment, in that one sensation. His lips pressed slowly into Eelesia's, soft, warm, and gentle as her mouth melded to Acreon's.

Slowly - at least, it seemed slow - the rest of the world came back to Eelesia as Acreon's lips lifted off hers so slowly it seemed their very flesh was clinging together. Her forehead rested against his and Eelesia realized they were breathing in shallow gasps.

"What just happened?" Acreon murmured, his eyes closed.

"We kissed," Eelesia answered, surprise in her breathless voice.

Eelesia and Acreon leaned back a bit so they could look at each other. Acreon shifted his legs to the opposite side of the log so he could face Eelesia better without twisting his torso. His thigh touched hers.

"What does this mean?" Acreon wondered.

"I don't know," Eelesia said, "but I really liked that."

"Yeah, me too," Acreon murmured.

Eelesia looked down at her hand where it rested on Acreon's chest. "When you touch me, I don't want you to stop."

Their faces were dangerously close again. Acreon's hand rested on Eelesia's hip while his other brushed fingertips over Eelesia's jawline.

"My hand is shaking," Acreon remarked.

"It feels like my whole body is shaking," Eelesia told him.

"Could this be lust?" Acreon wondered.

"Maybe."

"Are we old enough for that?" Acreon asked.

"Apparently," Eelesia replied, remembering her eventful morning.

"I'm not sure what to do with that," Acreon admitted, his breath washing across the small space between them.

"Me either," Eelesia whispered. "But I really want to kiss you agai - "

Her words cut off as her lips met Acreon's once more. It wasn't the world-shattering shock of the first time; Eelesia could still think, could consiously appriciate the vivid sensation of his lips moving timidly against hers. There wasn't a lot of movement; just the simple contact was as much as either of them could handle.

That gentle kiss bled into another, and then another, and it was much later when they finally broke apart, reluctantly pulling away from each other.

"This is the most wonderful thing I have ever experienced," Acreon breathed, smiling at her.

Eelesia blushed, smiling too. He'd taken the words right out of her mouth.

Acreon blinked suddenly. "Oh, crap, how long were we...?"

Eelesia's smile faltered and she immediatly pulled her hands back to herself. Acreon scooched away from her slightly, breaking all contact while remaining as close to her as possible.

"I guess we should get home, huh," Eelesia said.

Acreon stood up. "Yeah. Wanna race again?"

Eelesia pushed herself up, her smile slowly coming back. She nodded. "Let's go!"


	7. Dilemma

**~DILEMMA~**

Eelesia and Acreon darted through the streets, flying on the energy of their newfound attraction, laughing all the while, unable to help themselves. Acreon was on Eelesia's heels as they raced over the bridge and into the Mage Quarter.

Eelesia and Acreon both had found joy in racing on agile feet through the streets of their city, and their speed and skill only improved as they grew.

High on the energy of their kiss, Eelesia vaulted off the bridge railing into the tunnel. Shifting her body in midair, Eelesia caught the wall with her feet and ran sideways for three full strides before returning to the ground, already halfway through the tunnel.

Behind her Acreon laughed, bouncing off the wall with a flourish instead of running along it.

At the end of the tunnel, they each used the wall again to quickly change course, landing on soft grass at a flat-out sprint, perpendicular to their previous path.

Eelesia was still in the lead but Acreon had a plan. To the left, a stone ledge stayed level where the grassy path continued to angle downwards. Hopping onto the stone before it rose to high, Acreon raced towards the thatched awning at the end of it, placing his feet carefully so as to get the most distance out of his jump.

Acreon reached the awning and leaped. His stride fit the narrow ledge perfectly, a full step placing his foot right at the corner. Throwing his arms before him, Acreon vaulted into open air. He caught a glimpse of Eelesia sprinting ahead of him down the grassy path.

Acreon sailed through the air and over a tall wooden fence into the alley that was his target. He hit the packed dirt hard, rolling to dissapate the impact, and then he was running again.

Emerging onto grass, Acreon slowed to a walk. Up the grassy road to the left, he saw Eelesia appear around the corner and sprint towards him. Acreon stood in her path and grinned.

Eelesia laughed when she caught sight of him, slowing to a jog.

"Damnit!" she yelled in mock outrage, coasting down the hill until she crashed into him, nearly knocking them both down.

They laughed, keeping each other upright. Acreon made a mock bow and Eelesia backhanded him playfully on the chest for it.

Eelesia looked at the alley. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

Eelesia turned back to Acreon, who was already looking at her, and the laughter faded as they realized they were in each other's arms again. Their heavy breathing changed in quality, no longer merely a product of physical exertion.

For a moment, Acreon stared at Eelesia and Eelesia stared at Acreon. Then, carefully, Acreon tilted his head, eyes fluttering closed, and his lips brushed Eelesia's. Her soft lips parted eagerly and her arms tightened around him.

Tremors ran through Acreon's body, but the press of Eelesia's warm shape in his arms seemed to still them, change them, transmute them into something warm and deep and slow-moving.

Eelesia felt some part of Acreon lightly poking her at waist level, but her hazed mind didn't stop to wonder what it was until certain anatomy texts came back to her. A strange thrill ran through her.

Acreon's lips lifted slowly off Eelesia's, and then he noticed too and went red.

"Definately lust," Eelesia murmured wryly.

"So it would seem." Acreon laughed nervously.

They stepped away from each other then - as they always did, for the sake of Acreon's magic-and Eelesia followed Acreon inside. He seemed to war with himself for a moment, stretching his hand to take hers again and then pulling it back.

Acreon was anxious to have the comforting presence of mana around him again, but at the same time he really wanted to touch Eelesia some more. Kiss her again. The memory of her lips on his was so vivid it was like her flesh had left an imprint on him.

Acreon glanced at her as they climbed the stairs and caught her looking at him. Her expression was almost sorrowful. Acreon's hand twitched toward her again, but at that moment the mana returned to him, and he was lothe to have it gone again so quickly.

Acreon gave a reassuring smile as he opened the apartment door for her. Eelesia looked down with a grin at the gesture.

"Hey kids," Khet greeted them. He sat in the armchair with a large tome open in his lap. "Where have you been all afternoon?"

"We went to the park," Acreon told his father.

"Anything exciting happen?" he asked.

Eelesia giggled unintentionally. Khet raised an eyebrow.

"We had fun," Acreon shrugged.

"Well if you kids aren't too busy, go get yourselves cleaned up. Halia wants us all to sit down to dinner together," Khet told them. "It's been quite a while."

Eelesia and Acreon both chuckled.

"Yeah," Eelesia agreed, Acreon nodding alongside her.

Eelesia headed to her room, and Acreon to his. While Acreon magicked the dust off himself, Eelesia rummaged through her drawers for a brush. Her body felt jittery with excitement, and only a small part of that was in anticipation of Khet's culinary prowress.

She had kissed Acreon! And it was wonderful. Addicting.

* * *

After dinner, Khet and Halia went to bed early. They left Acreon and Eelesia sitting in the common room, biding the young ones goodnight and staring at each other as they retreated to the master bedroom. Acreon thought he caught a flash of his mother falling into his father's arms as the door swung shut.

Eelesia was sitting next to him on the sofa. They weren't touching but the whole left side of Acreon's body tingled with warmth at her nearness. It was maddening. He couldn't decide what was worse, touching her, or not touching her. He could only trade one agony for another.

Acreon let his head fall back and took a deep breath. It took a real effort to keep his left hand relaxed where it was. This was worse, he decided. Only the first touch cost him anything, whereas every second he had to fight the pull of her.

When the mana dissapeared, it was like someone pulling the rug out from under his feet, but after the initial jolt, it was only the inability to respond to an urgent need for magic that worried him. During that first kiss... he had to admit that he'd forgotten magic entirely.

"What're you thinking about?" Eelesia asked. She was looking at him.

"Magic."

There was a flicker of something like sadness on Eelesia's face, then another flicker that almost looked like guilt as she looked down. "Oh."

Acreon saw her expression and understood. He cupped her jaw with his right hand and turned her face gently towards him again. She let out a shakey breath, closing her eyes and leaning into his hand.

"I meant what I said this morning," Acreon told her, "and its even truer now."

Eelesia smiled without opening her eyes. "Are you sure you don't wish I hadn't gone and stirred up these... desires?" she teased, peeking at him.

"My she is very humble isn't she..." Acreon retorted lightly.

Eelesia punched him in the ribs, laughing.

Acreon laughed too, and then grew sombre. "Really, I kind of get the feeling it was inevitable," he said, stroking her cheek. Eelesia closed her eyes and let out a sound Acreon couldn't quite put a name to. It was the sound of shattering restraint.

Her lips were suddenly on his, moving eagerly as she leaned into him, tipping them over. Acreon swung his legs up as she bore him down until they were both stretched out horizontal. Eelesia wasn't quite laying ontop of him, but it was near enough.

Eelesia's lips came down on Acreon's again and he responded enthusiastically, wrapping his arms around her soft form. Her fingertips traced his face as she kissed him.

With the arm that wasn't pinned under her, Acreon reached up to stroke Eelesia's silky black hair.

She sighed something that sounded like, "Bliss..."

* * *

Their innocent intimacies were only interupted an hour or so later when Halia emerged to get a drink of water and caught the two of them kissing.

"Oh!" Halia breathed, stopping dead.

Acreon and Eelesia, who'd been fairly lost in one another, came to with a jolt. Eelesia went scarlet, though she wasn't quite sure why, as she pulled herself upright.

"Oh... uh... hi Mom," Acreon said, only slightly to loud. He sat up slowly, leaning back on his hands and smiling guiltily.

Halia sighed and sat down in the armchair. "I suppose I'm not all that suprised," she said.

"What do you mean?" Eelesia asked.

"When you joined our family, I hoped the two of you would come to love each other as brother and sister," Halia told them. "But you two never did behave like siblings."

Eelesia and Acreon glanced at each other.

Halia looked at them closely. "Will you two promise me something?"

Both of them nodded.

"Be careful, alright?"

Eelesia and Acreon glanced at each other again, then nodded again, though niether was sure exactly what Halia meant. Halia stood up then and said, "It's late. You two should get to sleep."

Acreon and Eelesia got up and followed her down the hallway until she vanished into the master bedroom again. Eelesia and Acreon stopped in the hall between their rooms. Eelesia slid her arms around his waist and put her head on his chest. Acreon held her there, breathing the scent of her hair.

"Mom's right," Acreon mused. "What are we now? Am I your friend? Lover? Boyfriend? Brother? What-"

Eelesia silenced him with a kiss. "You're my Acreon," she told him, "and I'm your Eelesia."

Acreon returned her shy smile with one of his own. He kissed her again, and then they reluctantly slid out of each others arms and headed for bed.

* * *

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Acreon asked, squeezing Eelesia's hand.

Eelesia nodded, her jaw set. "I will not let myself be cowed by such an irrational fear."

Hand in hand, Eelesia and Acreon made their way into the Royal Keep, following the grand halls to the War Room. Turning a corner, Eelesia saw the War Room's enterance flanked by two guards in the standard blue and grey armor of Stormwind.

"Whoa, where do you kids think you're going?" one of the guards asked gruffly.

Acreon stepped forward. "I'm Acreon Kalistrak."

The guard stared at him blankly for a few seconds, but the other guard said, "Oh wait, Gret, we're supposed to let this one in."

"Alright then," the first guard said. He pointed at Eelesia. "And she is?"

"With me," Acreon told them.

"Well, uh, alright, I guess-"

"Thank you," Acreon said firmly, towing Eelesia passed the guards.

As she followed Acreon into the War Room proper, Eelesia could hear one of the guards muttering, "he's a bit young for a golem expert..."

"Golem expert?" Eelesia asked, grinning.

"Well, its true as far as they're concerned," Acreon replied, smirking.

And then they were there. The War Room was white stone like the rest of the Keep, well lit by hanging chandeliers. The center of the room had been cleared to make room for a large stone slab. The dark metal monster lay dead upon it, dark green rather than black. It seemed much less menacing in the warm, well-lit room.

Acreon was watching her.

"I'm alright," Eelesia assured him. "It's not as bad as I thought it would be."

They weren't the only ones there to examine the mysterious dark golem. Across the room stood a tall bald man wearing jade-green robes and a puzzled frown, and nearer by the dead machine's right arm were three gnomes. Two were identical young males with firey hair; twins if Eelesia had to guess. The third was a blue-haired female, strangly regal for a gnome.

Acreon, meanwhile, was staring at the dead monster. "You attacked this thing?" he whispered in awe.

Eelesia blushed. She went closer to examine the joints in the golem's wicked hands. She bent a finger carefully, feeling how it moved and listening for the sound of gears or other moving parts. There were faint sounds but she couldn't be sure what they were.

"Merely an articulated sculpture animated by magics, or an autonomous machine driven by a magical engine?" Eelesia wondered to herself. "Where does magic meet mechanism?"

"I've been trying to figure that out myself," the blue-haired gnome said suddenly. She turned to Eelesia, looking suprised. "It's not often I meet a human girl who speaks like she knows the craft."

"Oh, well I like to think I know what I'm doing," Eelesia said neutrally.

The gnome chuckled. "I'm Jeyne. These are my, ah, assistants, Azzlik and Ezzrik," she said, indicating the Twins, who bowed.

"Eelesia. And this is Acreon."

"I'm fortunate to meet such a unique pair of youngsters," Jeyne said. "Do you both follow the craft?"

"Eelesia is the one with a gift for tinkering," Acreon said. "I'm more one for spells."

"He's being modest," Eelesia told them, smiling slyly at Acreon.

"So have you come far to see the creature here, or do you live in the city?" Acreon asked the gnomes.

"Oh no, we live local," Jeyne replied, then leaned forward and whispered, "Here on assignment for Project Deeprun, you know."

"You're on the tram project?" Eelesia blurted. "I saw a mockup when I was visiting Gnomeregan this summer. Its a monumental undertaking; it must be exciting."

"Oh it has its benefits," Jeyne smirked, glancing at the Twins.

"So, why hasn't some part of this thing been dissasembled by now?" Acreon asked, gesturing at the mechanical corpse dominating the room.

"Nobody's quite figured out how to do that without destroying it. No seams to pry open, no bolts to loosen, and the metal itself is wack stuff," Jeyne told him.

"How so?" Eelesia asked.

Jeyne frowned. "There was a dwarven team in here the other day. They tried to score one of the plates to make a clean cut, but all they succeeded in doing was ruining a good set of steel tools."

"I'm more curious about where this thing came from than how it works," Acreon said.

Jeyne sighed. "Ah, well as to that, no one seems to have the slightest clue. It's utterly alien."

Eelesia remember how it was back in the mountain pass, looming with a deep mechanical hum, and shuddered. Acreon gave her hand a quick squeeze.

"Well, we have places to be," Jeyne told them. The Twins were suddenly flanking her. "It was nice to meet you kids. We should talk again."

Eelesia nodded, smiling. "That would be nice."

"Come down to the Pig & Whistle some time, okay?" Jeyne said brightly. "Someone there'll usually know where to find us."

"We will," Acreon promised.

The three gnomes hurried out of the room. As they cleared the doorway, Eelesia was almost sure she saw Jeyne's dainty hands flash out to either side of her and grab both the Twins' butts. Eelesia raised an eyebrow.

She started at the dead golem again, willing some revelation to come to her, but none did. Eelesia sighed.

"Ready to go?" Acreon asked.

"Yeah, I guess so," Eelesia replied, and they went.

Outside the Keep, most of the city was still in the mountain's shadow, so Eelesia put her arm through Acreon's and they walked at a leasurely pace on their way home, stealing a kiss every now and then.

They paused without really deciding to, on the bridge between Old Town and the Trade District, and soon found themselves seated on the edge, feet dangling over the water. Acreon put his arm around her waist and pulled her close, and then they were kissing.

Eelesia's lips opened eagerly for Acreon's as she caressed his cheek and he held her to him. Lips, so moist and soft, moved together in a slow harmony.

"I'm so very fortunate to have you," Eelesia said when they broke apart. She rested her forhead on his shoulder. "I love you, Acreon. I owe you everything."

Acreon stroked her hair. "You owe nothing. I love you too, Eelesia. Always."

* * *

They sat side by side on the bridge a short while longer, until the sun began to peek over the moutains. With a grin and a laugh, they were off, flying through the city on agile feet.

Acreon ran with Eelesia at his side, springing nimbly over obsticles and around slower city-goers as they navigated the crowded Trade District. Acreon wove through the bodies without loosing speed, leaping off a crate and swinging from a signpost to get over a particularly dense clump of people mingling outside the Gilded Rose.

Eelesia copied him, landing smoothly on Acreon's heels as he sprinted into the connecting tunnel. Grinning, Acreon put on a burst of speed, his limbs almost blurring as they moved with a blinding quickness.

Acreon didn't vere towards the bridge when he came out of the tunnel. Instead, he forced his body to move faster, throwing himself from the edge of the canal. The leap took everything Acreon had, and if the other side hadn't been slightly lower, he was sure he would have smashed into the brick and fallen into the water instead of just barely making the edge. It was a reckless thing to attempt while manaless.

His legs screamed with the force of the impact but Acreon managed to keep on his feet. He'd made the distance.

"Hah!" Acreon punched the sky, whooping, as he glanced back just in time to see Eelesia land with a roll, having just made the same leap.

Acreon was still grinning back at her when he crashed hard into something. People. Acreon went down in a tangle of limbs, bringing three older boys down with him.

Eelesia skidded to a stop, mouthing, "Oh! Shit."

"Hey what the fuck!" one of the older boys screeched, a blonde guy.

"Stupid punk," another complained, struggling to his feet and pushing his long red hair out of his face.

Acreon himself was struggling to get upright. "Are you alright?" Eelesia asked.

"Kids need to learn some respect," the third one growled as he pushed himself up. He seemed the oldest; the other two looked to him for instruction.

The blonde one jerked his arms and his fists caught fire. He grabbed the front of Acreon's shirt and slammed him against the tunnel wall, the heat was blackening the silk and making Acreon's eyes sting. Where was a crowd when you needed one? The mana hadn't come back to him yet; he was helpless.

"Hey!" Eelesia yelled.

"Shut her up," the oldest boy ordered.

Acreon tried to yell, "Run!" but the blonde one slammed his other flaming fist into Acreon's gut. These were magic-users; Eelesia had to get away before any of them touched her and discovered her secret. Judging by their actions so far, they were exactly the type of people who would kill Eelesia for what she could do.

The red-head cast a wave of rippling darkness at Eelesia, but she was to quick and it sailed passed her harmlessly. The leader made a lunge for her, but she slipped away, vaulting off the side of the tunnel and out of any of their reach.

The leader sent a fireball after her, but she dodged that too. "Acreon!" she yelled.

Acreon heard her, but couldn't answer. He was too busy having the air driven out of his lungs by the blonde boy's flaming fists. Acreon coughed up blood, and the blonde boy let him fall to the ground.

All three of them turned to Eelesia and started slinging curses. Acreon knew he and Eelesia were in trouble. These three had dabbled in the Fel arts, and now that they had resorted to such spells, they couldn't allow witnesses.

Acreon swore mentally. The three warlocks were not experienced; Acreon knew his own ability to be far beyond theirs. And yet, here he was, laying bloodied and useless on the ground.

Just then, Eelesia danced out of their grasp again, and let fly with a loose stone that had been knocked from the walls. The chunk smashed the blonde one full in the face, throwing him to the ground. He didn't get up.

The other two paused, gaping in surprise. "You're dead, cunt!"

Eelesia ran up the wall and backflipped over their heads when they lunged at her. Acreon watched as he struggled to get up.

The leader spun and threw a ball of darkness but Eelesia dodged yet again, only this time the red-head was ready. A fountain of fire erupted from the ground and the blast of heat knocked Eelesia off balance. She stumbled, and the red-head grabbed her.

The fire vanished and all was still for half a heartbeat.

Then the red-head screamed. "Abomination! Abomination!" He fell back, shoving Eelesia away, but they both tumbled to the ground, the warlock thrashing in panic.

The leader swooped down and wrapped his hands around Eelesia's neck, demanding, "What did you - "

Then he screamed too.

What would have happened next, would remain a mystery, because that was the moment when Acreon felt the magic return.

"Stop," his voice rang out through the tunnel, magically amplified.

The red-head was still staring at Eelesia like she was Deathwing come again, but the leader had more courage. He turned to face Acreon.

Acreon was floating in the air in the center of the tunnel. Before either warlock could do more than gape, he slammed them with a barrage of arcane energy. Then he did it again. He hit them again, and he hit them again, anger obliterating caution.

The warlocks were smashed under the onslaught, falling unconsious next to the one Eelesia had knocked out with a rock.

Only once they'd stopped moving completely did Acreon sink to the ground again and kneel next to Eelesia.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice low and strained.

"Yeah, but they touched me," she breathed. "They know!"

"I know," Acreon said, hanging his head.

"The blonde one didn't see," Eelesia said, climbing to her feet.

"But the other two did," Acreon whispered in horror.

"What do we do?" Eelesia wondered. "Leave them to be discovered?"

"No, they got a good look at you," Acreon said. "They're exactly the kind of people Dad warned us against. They'll kill you..."

Acreon stared at her desperatly. "No," he said. "I can't let that happen."

"Acreon?"

Two unconsious warlocks floated up into the air. "They can't be allowed to wake."

"You're going to kill them," Eelesia guessed.

Acreon grabbed his head in his hands and let out a long breath. "Yes."

Eelesia was watching him with an unfathomable look in her eyes. Her expression was pained, a mirror of Acreon's.

Eelesia shook her head. "No, you're not. I am."

"What?"

"It's my life at stake. It should be me," she insisted.

Acreon shook his head. "My mistake put you in danger, and we don't have time."

There was a flash of arcane energy, blindingly bright, and then there was nothing left of the two warlocks but a few motes of dust.

"I'm sorry," Acreon said.

Eelesia took his hand. "I'm sorry, too."

Acreon looked at her for a long moment. "Let's go. Let's go home."

Acreon saw tears on Eelesia's cheeks as they hurried into the Mage Quarter.

* * *

Luckily, Halia and Khet were both out when Eelesia and Acreon got home. Acreon cleaned himself up and changed into an unburnt shirt. Eelesia helped him with the bandages.

Once Acreon was suitibly patched up, Eelesia slammed her fist against the wall and sank onto his bed with her head in her hands. Acreon sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"This never would have happened if you hadn't been suffering for me," Eelesia muttered, shrugging him off. "Stop it, stop touching me, I don't deserve it. And you need your magic more than you need me."

"Eelesia..." Acreon took her hand firmly, not letting her pull away.

"No, damnit," she whimpered, feebly pushing him away. He wouldn't let go, though, so she gave up and found herself sobbing into his chest.

Acreon stroked her silky black hair and kissed the top of her head. "You're more important to me than anything, Eelesia. Anything."

"What are we going to tell Halia and Khet?" Eelesia sobbed.

"Nothing," Acreon decided. "They don't need to be involved."

Acreon took a deep breath to steady himself. He wasn't sobbing like Eelesia, but tears stained his cheeks just the same.

"We shouldn't do this," Eelesia mumbled.

"Do what?"

"Be intimate," Eelesia sobbed. "It puts us both in danger."

"What choice do we have?" Acreon asked.

Eelesia looked up at him. "We could stop. Ignore our desires, only touch when nessesary," she closed her eyes and burried her face in his chest again.

"Is that what you want?" Acreon murmured.

"No!" Eelesia cried. "I can barely stand the thought, but its what we must do, isn't it?"

"I don't think I could live with that," Acreon told her. "From now on, we'll just have to be much more careful."

Eelesia just nodded, done trying to argue for something she dreaded. Acreon cradled her against his chest, gently stroking her, and as the day slipped by and the memories dulled, they sank onto the bed together, and her lips found his.

* * *

(**A/N**: I'd like to note just FYI that the first ten chapters of _Gift of the Dark Ancestor_ were written a long time ago - before mid-2009 - way before I even started on any of my other posted stories, with one exception. The only story that pre-dates this one is _Chronicle of the Void_, which can be found on Fictionpress through the link in my profile. When I first started _Gift of the Dark Ancestor_, I'd wanted to finish all sixteen planned chapters before I posted it, but I hit a bit of a block and got stalled after chapter ten. I'll be doling out the finished chapters slowly as I have time to format them and finish other projects that have a higher priority.)


	8. Building An Army

**~BUILDING AN ARMY~**

Raesindra watched with a critical eye as the latest of her new Succubi took its first victim. Ceraloni stood beside her, watching just as closely, if not for the same things. The elven Lady wasn't watching the two bodies tangle into one, but the flows of life force in the two creatures.

"That is the last of the Mag'har males," Raesindra commented.

"No matter. My Felpods will be back with new specimens soon," Ceraloni said dismissivly.

Meanwhile, the succubus and the orc had toppled to the ground, flesh of snow tangling with flesh of rust. The newly demonized female had impaled herself on thick orc cock and was riding the dazed male with near-mindless enthusiasm.

Almost immediatly, the orc cried out, exploding his seed into the nubile demon. Raesindra could actually see the Succubus' belly jiggle from the powerful cock's convulsions. The orc's eyes rolled up into his head as his body twitched. His body kept twitching for almost a full minute before he lay still.

"Seven seconds," Ceraloni noted. "Good, but not great."

"They were all a little slow their first time," Raesindra reminded her mistress. "Even as powerful as we've made them, they still get distracted by their own pleasure the first time."

"Are you sure you've boosted the potency of their natural pheramone to its maxiumum potential?"

"Yes I am," Raesindra nodded. "I've tried variations with a few of the throw-aways, but even the slightest bit stronger, and it renders victims impotent instead of causing hyper-arrousal."

Ceraloni nodded. "It was a stroke of genius to replace their skin with vaginal tissue," the Lady complimented Raesindra.

"Thank you, Mistress," Raesindra replied humbly. "I had the idea to make their pheremonal effect stronger using sweat glans, but it was actually easier to change the nature of their skin entirely. As a bonus, they're very slippery, which should aid them in combat."

The deflowered Succubus got up off the deceased Mag'har, orc cum oozing down her thighs, and went to her knees before the glorious Lady. Her entire body glistened with wetness.

"You shall be named Kala," Ceraloni decreed. "You are welcomed to my service."

Ceraloni reached out, her fingertip glowing a fel green, and touched the newly named Kala on the forehead. She sent a jolt of energy into the Succubus' body, straight down her spine and into her pussy. Kala was knocked onto her back with a squeal of pleasure. Ceraloni concentrated.

The Succubus' loins convulsed visibly. After several moments, Kala's slit was still pulsing, but she got to her cloven feet anyway.

Kala bowed before her mistress, and then dove out of the sanctum to join her sisters in the Garden. The second-youngest, Jala, met her new sister in mid air and kissed her without preamble, and the two Succubi tumbled downward with a hand in each other's crotch.

Ceraloni turned to her faithful Shivan servant. "How are your efforts to mutate the Wereflowers going?"

"Not well," Raesindra admitted. "They're stubborn organisms and they resist magical alteration. I've only succeeded in killing several of them."

"There must be a way," Ceraloni said. "The Wereflowers are certainly useful as they are. And enjoyable. But I want a mobile mutant strong enough to be used as a weapon."

Raesindra nodded. "Yes, my Lady."

The Wereflower was a fasinating creature from the Sayyad homeworld. One of the most curious things about Sayyad was the complete lack of males in the species. Somehow, and even Raesindra who was an expert on Sayyad did not know how, the Sayyad had evolved a symbiotic relationship with a species of massive red flowers. Sayyad actually mated with the flowers.

They had a collection of Wereflowers under a dome cage in the Garden, where Raesindra was headed. She stepped on the teleportation plate and suddenly found herself looking up at the tall and graceful red petals of one of the plants.

Only three of the dozen or so flowers were occupied. The three uncorrupted Sayyad they'd first captured were kept down here day and night, under a sleep spell. Every couple of months, a new Sayyad was born. They matured quickly, and as soon as they were grown, Raesindra took them and turned them into Succubi.

"How are my girls doing?" Raesindra asked the unresponsive creatures as she walked passed.

Wereflowers could only impregnate Sayyad, of course, but they were so well evolved to pleasure the female body that Raesindra and Ceraloni had both climbed into one on several occasions. Raesindra was sorely tempted to indulge herself right then, but she had to check the outer ring of Wereflowers first, to see if any of her spells had born fruit, so to speak.

Sadly, Raesindra was met with dissapointment once more. The two she'd tried to alter this time had withered up and died again. Raesindra slumped against the bars of the cage and sighed.

"Damn you plants," the Shivan grumbled. "Why will you not bend?"

Raesindra sighed again. There was simply nothing to be done until the failed plants could be replaced.

Reaching across her shoulder, Raesindra undid the one fastening on her thin silver gown and let it fall to the ground. She ran all six of her hands over her naked body as she wondered which of the healthy Wereflowers she wanted to experience.

They were all pretty much the same, so Raesindra ended up picking one at random.

She stood before the curtain of red petals and dipped a finger in her sex. Raesindra was already wet with anticipation. Once her finger was well and wetted, she dabbed the moisture against the soft petals.

The Wereflower opened for her, the petals slowly drawn aside allowing the demoness inside. Raesindra stepped onto the spongey innards of the Wereflower.

The inside of these flowers was their real marvel. A hundred stamen waved like reeds in the wind, drawn to the scent of an aroused vagina. Each was tipped with a miniature penis, and came up roughly to the level of Raesindra's navel.

As Raesindra waded into them, the stamen nudged at her, seeking out the alluring sent of her sex. They bumped into each other as they nudged her crotch. Some tried to cling to her arms or legs by curving around her, but she wasn't quite ready to let them have her yet, and their strength was no match for bone and muscle. The stamen pulled at her thighs, trying fruitlessly to force her legs apart.

That, of course, was one of the things Ceraloni wanted her to change about the Wereflowers. The Lady wanted the plants strong enough to overpower a person. Strong enough to rape, not just pleasure.

The petals closed behind her, throwing the flower's interior into a deep maroon twilight. She was at the flower's center, where the pistil, a thick yellow shaft taller than her, curved down to greet her. The pistil was as thick as her arm, but its tip sported a pair of very humanoid-looking lips. Instead of a tongue, though, the lips opened and a thin, cock-shaped tendril snaked out.

Normally, the Wereflower used this tendril to sow its spores in the body of the Sayyad it was impregnating, so that the Sayyad would spread the Wereflowers wherever they went. The spores died instantly when they entered a demon's body, but it still felt good to let the flower do as it would.

The pistil wound twice around Raesindra's midrift and slid up between her breasts, searching for her mouth. She let the flower have her, unclenching her thighs and letting the prehensile pistil take her weight.

Now that Raesindra was no longer resisting, the cock-tipped stamen wound around her limbs and pulled her down amongst themselves, pulling her legs apart and winding over any part of her they could find, inadvertantly massaging the whole of her.

Stamen fought to get at her dripping enterance. One managed to slip inside her, invoking a soft gasp from the Shivan. A second followed the first, worming its way in beside its brother, then a third. Raesindra moaned, throwing her head back. Her tight passage was stretched wonderfully as the three stamen wriggled around each other inside her.

More tried to join the first three, but three was all that could fit. While trying to get in, though, some of the heads rubbed Raesindra's clit and ass. One particularly slipery one actually manage to penetrate her puckered hole, wriggling into her rear.

Raesindrea moaned. It was just too good.

The pistil, which had so far simply been holding the majority of her weight, wound around Raesindra's neck, its end opening and affixing to her mouth. She didn't resist the tendril that wormed its way into her mouth; it was soft and tasted like flesh. She sucked on it lightly without even really meaning to.

She just relaxed and let the Wereflower have its way with her. Soon she was completely covered in warm and slippery Sayyad seed. The stamen didn't ejaculate, but were always coated with what essentially ammounted to cum.

It wasn't long before the Wereflower coaxed the first of many orgasms from Raesindra's flushed body. She convulsed, gasping with pleasure around the tendril in her mouth. Her loins rippled, clamping down on the wriggling stamen.

The flower had no way of recognizing that, though. It would keep doing what it was doing for several days before depleting itself and going still for half a day or so to recover.

Raesindra layed back with a contented sigh and let the Wereflower keep doing its work, slowly building her up to another climax.

She stayed in the flower for the rest of the day. After her fourth orgasm, a fourth stamen managed to squeeze itself into her pussy, and after her sixth orgasm, a second stamen gained enterance to her ass. The pistil was lodged so far down her throat she couldn't even tell where the head was, and her body was covered with a thick layer of flowercum.

"Enjoying yourself, Raesindra?" came the voice of her mistress, suddenly.

Raesindra's eyes snapped open and she sat up, pulling her arms from the stamen's grasp and prying the pistil off her face so she could answer.

By the time Raesindra managed it, though, the curtain of petals had opened to reveal Ceraloni standing over her, nude and smirking.

"You can stay put," Ceraloni told her. "I've come to join you."

"My Lady," Raesindra acknowledged.

Ceraloni slid herself up Raesindra's cumsoaked body, much warmer than the Wereflower's flesh. She crushed her breasts against Raesindra's and straddled the demon. Stamen wound themselves around Ceraloni's body, wriggling into her wanton holes. Almost twice as many fit into Ceraloni as fit in Raesindra.

Raesindra's arms went around her mistress as Ceraloni pressed her lips down on the Shivan's. The pistil wound around the two of them, binding mistress to servant. It wasn't long before Ceraloni was in the same state as Raesindra, wracked by orgasm and covered in flowercum. Truely a marvolous organism, the Wereflower.

* * *

Much later, Ceraloni floated up through her Garden with a sleeping Raesindra in her arms. Naked and dripping Sayyad seed, Ceraloni carried the Shivan out to her sleeping quarters in the south tower. Almost as an afterthought, Ceraloni cleaned them both off with a quick spell.

Raesindra was sound asleep and in no danger of waking up, so Ceraloni dumped the Shivan unceremoniously onto the bed and turned to glide gracefully away.

Ceraloni smiled at her own timing, for her teleporters lit up at just that moment, heralding the return of her Felpods. With a flash of green, the first of the returning constructs materalized on the outskirts of Ceraloni's fortress.

More flashes followed. Felpods glided out of the teleporters, rising up towards the crown of the fortress.

After the eighth flash, the teleporters went quiet.

Ceraloni stopped dead. Eight was wrong. Her Felpods always hunted in sets of three and she'd sent nine. One was missing.

Ceraloni flew, literally, into the sanctum where the returned Felpods awaited her orders. In the hundreds of years since their creation, a Felpod had never failed to return to her.

"Array," Ceraloni commanded.

The Felpods arranged themselves immediatly, forming a square in the air. A square with a missing corner.

"Azeroth," Ceraloni breathed, gazing at the occupants of the two who were missing their third. They'd brought her a strange feathered woman-creature and a male human.

She ordered the Felpods that had returned to deposit their catches on the tables. The other set she'd sent to Azeroth had brought her a female jungle troll, a male night elf, and a burly male tauren. The final set of three had brought her two Mag'har females and a male. Once all eight had emptied themselves, Ceraloni dismissed seven of the Felpods and set a preserving spell over the new specimens so she could revive them at her leasure.

She turned to the lone remaining Felpod. "Sleep," she commanded.

Her golem complied immediatly, falling forward onto the floor of the sanctum.

Ceraloni stared at it in annoyance. She'd never considered this possibility, that anything could ever prevent one of her creations from completing its directives. There was no easy way to "ask" her Felpod what happened to its counterpart.

The only course Ceraloni could think to take was to open up the Felpod's body and remove one of its memory crystals. It was slow, precice work, and as Ceraloni began by carefully removing one of the back-plates, her jaw was set in annoyance. It was mostly her own lack of foresight that irked Ceraloni. Her Felpods were not as perfect as she'd thought.

Several hours later, Ceraloni had her prize. A tiny fragment of crystal that contained a copy of the Felpod's visual memory. She slid off the Felpod's back and drifted across the sanctum towards the shielded partition.

The force shield recognized her presence and dispersed, revealing an intricate arcane console. It was the most precious device Ceraloni possesed, for it controlled every fuction of her massive fortress.

Ceraloni went to one of the consoles and placed the crystal in a small tray. Tiny beams of arcane energy snared the crystal and held it aloft. She touched the circuit of a projection crystal on the console and turned a switch to connect it to the reader. An oval of light formed in the air before her, quickly refining itself into an image.

Ceraloni scanned through images of mountains and clouds and huge alien forests. She caught a glimpse of one of those feathered women and slowed the playback to normal speed.

The blur of color resolved itself into a snow-covered valley. More of those feathered women swarmed, most fleeing, other's flying around to warn the others, some even attempting to attack with inneffectual nature magic.

Snow sped by as the bird-women were chased. Beyond the closest prey was a rocky ridge, and in the distance, massive numbers of the feathered creatures rose into a pale grey sky. A wicked green-black claw came into view as the Felpod swatted one of the casters out of the air and gave chase to the larger flock.

Ceraloni stood before the display, watching the nimble creatures narrowly avoid capture. Land fell away as the chase took to the sky. Those same hands snatched the creatures out of the air, but the bird-women fought so fearcely that they became damaged and were discarded.

Watching and waiting, Ceraloni crossed her arms over her naked breasts and searched the images for anything that could have even the slightest possibility of presenting a threat. She did catch sight of a black dragon once, but the chase continued, showing nothing but the feathered women again.

The display showed rust-red moutain peaks poking up through a sea of cloud, when Raesindra came into the sanctum, dressed only in a shimmery silver loincloth.

She came to Ceraloni's side. "You look worried, Mistress."

"Nine I sent," Ceraloni replied without taking her eyes off the screen. "Nine I sent, and only eight have returned."

"Felpods?" Raesindra asked in shock. "What could possibly trouble one of your magnificent constructs?"

"That is what I am trying to find out," Ceraloni muttered.

The screen showed one of the other Felpods, possibly the missing one, make a dive for one of the creatures and miss.

"Oh! Harpys!" Raesindra exclaimed.

"You know of these creatures?" Ceraloni asked, surprised.

Raesindra nodded, though Ceraloni's eyes were fixed on the display. "I haven't seen one in ten thousand years, but yes. They were once servants to an Azerothian demigod, but they are little more than beasts now."

The display dimmed as the Felpods plunged into the clouds in pursuit of the flock.

"Not a threat, then," Ceraloni muttered.

"No," Raesindra agreed.

The display shifted. "Humans," Ceraloni growled.

A long train of wagons, carts, and other primitive vehicles wound through a narrow pass in the mountains. Humans looked up and yelled. Arrows were fired.

Another Felpod came into view. It flipped a wagon into the air to get at the human trying to crawl under it. Ceraloni watched as the man that was now laying on a table behind her was scooped up and encased within the Felpod.

The view shifted, and the other Felpod came into view, though it was barely visible through the mist. It swiped at what looked like a cart and then bent low to the ground.

Closer, a young male human was waving a sword at the Harpys. In his exposed position, the fool was quickly carried off by two of the creatures while a third followed. To Ceraloni's frustration, the view shifted again to follow the abducted human.

"That one's a matriarch," Raesindra said, pointing to the third Harpy. "Harpys have no males, but are able to get with child from almost anything with a cock."

Sure enough, the matriarch latched onto the human, who'd gone rigid with fear. The matriarch wore no clothing, and her claws quickly shredded the clothing on the human, and a bit of skin. These were not precise creatures after all.

Inspite of all that, when the human's cock was freed, it sprang out fully erect, and the matriarch waisted no time impaling herself on it. She rode the human while the two other Harpys carried him between them.

Before she could really get into it though, a claw shot into view and closed around the rutting bird. Crazed with lust, the matriarch didn't realize what was happening until too late, and it was captured. The other two fled in fear, dropping the human to his death.

The view shifted again, centering on a Felpod laying motionless on the ground. There wasn't a mark on the thing, but it was clearly dead. Ceraloni shivered. She _never_ shivered.

Ceraloni clenched her fists. "Damnit. I know where, but still not why or how."

"What will you do?" Raesindra asked.

Ceraloni didn't answer immediatly. She didn't know what the best course was. She snatched the crystal out of the console and crushed it in her fist. The display went blank white.

"I must discover what sort of power could do this," Ceraloni decided. "I have a place to start the search, at the very least."

"You're leaving, Mistress?"

"Yes." Ceraloni turned to her Shivan servant. "I trust I can leave my fortress in your hands, Raesindra?"

Raesindra bowed. "Of course, Mistress."

"Good," Ceraloni replied, flipping switches and dials on the arcane console. "Come," she said when she was done.

Raesindra followed her out of the partition. The force shield returned as soon as she passed the threshold.

Ceraloni stopped suddenly and turned to face Raesindra. The Shivan almost collided with her Mistress. Ceraloni kissed Raesindra fearcely.

"Continue our work. Rule well in my abscence," she whispered.

The glorious Lady stepped away then, rising into the air as green fire licked up her naked flesh. The fire intensified, engulfing Ceraloni until she burned like a jade star.

With a blast of hot wind, she was gone. Her passage was marked only by a quickly-fading trail of green flame arcing into the distance.

* * *

Raesindra sat in the grass and stared at the Wereflower, thinking. This was the next flower she'd selected to expiriment on, but she could not think of a course she had not already tried.

In the end, she settled on trying a variation of her first attempt. Maybe applying the mutating magics in a certain order would make the difference. Raesindra closed her eyes to concentrate.

She spent the rest of the day working with that theory. Two more Wereflowers perished but when Raesindra returned to examine the third, she was in for a surprise.

The flower was still alive. More, it had actually grown taller, and its petals were now a splotchy blue instead of red. And it was moving. A steady pulsation almost like breathing.

As Raesindra approached, the mutated Wereflower leaned towards her and its petals opened completely, forming a large fan. Its organs were changed too. The pistil was red now, and twice as large as it should have been. It whipped around like an angry serpent. The stamen were similarly changed, a writhing knot of purple tentacles.

Raesindra grinned at her victory. This was a very good start. She wondered how it would perform, but was wary about leaping into the mutant herself. Luckily, there were plenty of new specimens in the sanctum above her.

The mutant pistil made a lunge for her, but Raesindra was standing at a safe distance and it couldn't reach her. She would have to make it able to obey her commands before she gave it freedom of movement, Raesindra mused.

Stepping through the teleportation plate, Raesindra went to the tables and set her hands on one of the Mag'har females, a lean and muscled specimen. She wanted the least fragile test subject; just how strong the mutant was remained to be seen.

Raesindra burned life into the copper-skinned female, the way Ceraloni had taught her. The orc's chest heaved, and she was alive.

Raesindra hoisted the naked female over her shoulders and went back to the Garden. The orc stirred feebly.

Laying the female in the grass, Raesindra knelt over her and sent a tiny shock of power into her forehead. The orc jerked awake, but before the female could come to her senses, Raesindra stood her up and gave her a good shove towards the mutant Wereflower.

The orc seemed to realize what was happening a split second to late and tried to backpedal, but the pistil had already snared her.

Raesindra heard a sickening snap as the thick red organ caught the orc's arm against her side as it wreeled her in. The orc screamed, but that was short lived as well. The pistil latched onto the orc's mouth and Raesindra could see her throat bulging where the tongue-like tendril was burrowing into her stomach.

A continued, choked, muffled scream was the only recourse the orc had. Once the copper-skinned female had been pulled into the stamen's range, they swarmed over her, wrenching on her limbs. Raesindra could see the orc thrashing uselessly inside the tangle. The stamen were jamming themselves into the orc with such force that despite their very effective natural lubrication, blood was dripping from her crotch. Her belly rippled as mutant stamen ripped into her womb.

The orc went limp, passed out from the pain probably. Her face was covered by the pistil's mouth, cutting off her air supply anyway, and her loins were a ruin. Raesindra couldn't even tell what was pussy and what was anus; it was just one stuffed bloody hole.

And then stamen burst from the orc's abdomen, spraying blood and guts everywhere.

At that point Raesindra decided that this particular Wereflower had taught her what she needed to know, but was beyond salvaging.

Raesindra's lips moved and her fingers twichted. A pillar of green fire suddenly stood where the mutant Wereflower had been moments before.

Once the creature was good and dead she let the pillar fade, sighing. Now she had a mess to clean up. She was excited, though. Finally a successful mutation. Raesindra had a basis from which to work now; after this breakthrough, the goal of her perfect Wereflower seemed much more attainable. Ceraloni would be very pleased when she returned.

Her mind half on arcane calculations, half fantasizing about her mistress, Raesindra treated the circle of burnt grass with a smile on her face.


	9. Intimacy

**~INTIMACY~**

Another couple of years went by on Azeroth. Eelesia and Acreon grew up. Their aquantance with Jeyne and the Twins grew to daily corespondance on all matters concerning engineering, and Acreon put his keen magical skills to use in the Sanctum teaching less experienced mages, who often times were reluctant to learn from someone so much younger than them.

Guilt for the deaths they'd caused faded to distant memory, and after so long the fear that the third warlock would track them down in search of vengence was nearly forgotten too. The two who were no longer children were coming into their own, and their love for each other only grew stronger as the years passed.

It was spring, the night after Acreon had - with Khet's aid - confirmed that he had indeed finished growing, at a respectable five feet and nine inches.

* * *

Acreon tossed restlessly in his bed, doing his best to ignore the stubborn erection that was making a tent of his sheets. Not ten minutes ago he'd been in the hallway with Eelesia, back against the wall and her curved around him as they kissed. Usually Acreon would have gone soft and drifted off to sleep by now, but tonight his cock stood rigid.

Often he'd become hard when he and Eelesia first set to making out, but it seldom stayed that way for more than half an hour or so; they were always so gentle with each other. Not for fear or uncertainty-they were long passed that-but simply because they both liked it that way. To savor every moment, every little bit of closeness.

Tonight, though, had been a slightly less gentle night, Acreon reflected. Eelesia had clung to him with a bit more fervor than usual, moving her body against his in ways that invoked his arrousal.

Acreon reached down and slid his fingers around his throbbing shaft and squeezed. It sent a spike of pleasure through his loins. He admitted that he probably wasn't going to be able to ignore it tonight. Sighing, Acreon rolled onto his front, pushing his cock out between his legs. He stuffed a pillow between his arm and his head, spread his legs to get a better angle, and began to roll his hips against the bed.

He let out a long, deep breath, relaxing his upper body as he humped the soft mattress, grinding his crotch into the yielding surface. Pressure built up quickly and Acreon let it overflow, gasping silently as the tremors ran through him and his cock pulsed.

With a contented sigh, Acreon let his body go limp and drifted off, his seed soaking into the sheets between his thighs.

* * *

In the morning, Eelesia yawned hugely as she rolled onto her back, awake but not quite ready to get up yet. It was a weekend, so there was nothing urgent to coax her from her bed.

Once she was fully awake, she did get up. Eelesia padded into the shower and simply stood under the hot water for a few minutes, letting the heat soak into her. She proceeded to clean herself efficiently.

She'd just shut the water off when she heard a knock at her door and Acreon's voice calling, "Eelesia?"

"In here."

Acreon's footsteps crossed the room and he appeared at the end of the partition. He halted instantly when he saw she was naked and went red.

Eelesia didn't feel an impulse to cover herself. It wasn't like when they were kids, and nudity went almost unnoticed, though. Eelesia certainly felt an impulse, but it was not to hide her naked body from Acreon's eyes. The point was moot anyway, because Acreon kept his gaze firmly north of her neck.

"Uh..." he said. His eyes did not waver, but it must have taken all his concentration to keep them fixed on Eelesia's face. "Morning..."

She suddenly wondered how good Acreon's peripheral vision was. Eelesia folded her hands at her waist in an attempt at at least a slight modesty, but that went awry as the posture only served to push her pert little breasts into prominence.

The two stared at each other for several long moments in silence before Acreon said, "Well, this is awkward."

Eelesia burst out laughing. She had to grip the wall for support while her laughter made her chest bounce in a very distracting way. Acreon couldn't help grinning at her mirth, and he also couldn't help but let his eyes absorb Eelesia in all her naked glory. A distinct bulge was visible through his silken pants.

"Like what you see?" Eelesia asked him. She held her arms, showing off her nudity and winking at him in a really over-the-top way.

An abbreviated laugh blew out of Acreon, taking his awkwardness with it.

"Of course," Acreon replied with a soft smile. "But here," he said, handing her a towel and retreating around the partition. He sat on her bed.

"It's not like you weren't going to see me naked eventually, anyway," Eelesia said as she dried herself.

"Such are the dangers of showering with an open door policy," Acreon teased.

"That's not what I meant," Eelesia laughed, tossing down her towel and grabbing a pair of featureless black silk panties and matching bra.

"What did you mean?" Acreon asked. His voice was light but the question was serious.

Eelesia walked around the partition to face him, her breasts still mostly exposed by the half-put-on bra. Acreon sat on the edge of her bed with his hands in his lap, wearing his usual black pants and icy blue shirt. She let the bra fall to the floor.

"Come here."

Acreon's eyes strayed to her chest for only a moment as he complied. She took his hand in both of hers.

"Eelesia, what are you doing?" Acreon murmered.

"I think we're ready," Eelesia said. "Don't you?"

"You mean... ready to... have sex?"

Eelesia nodded, blushing. "Yeah."

Acreon looked into her eyes. "Right now?" he asked nervously.

"Maybe not right now," she said, smiling shyly.

"I think we're ready, too, but I, uh," Acreon replied uncertainly.

"Why don't we start with something easy?" Eelesia said, placing Acreon's open palm on her naked breast. He carefully cupped her supple flesh.

"And I thought they felt nice through your shirt," Acreon murmured wryly.

His palm rubbed across Eelesia's nipple as his fingers caressed her sensitive skin. She closed her eyes with a, "Mmmmh."

It was a good thing she was damp from her shower, because Acreon's hand on her naked flesh was stirring her loins to swell in anticipation and Eelesia was sure her wetness was seeping from her netherlips. Clad as she was only in panties, hiding her arrousal would be difficult, but then she remember that she didn't want to hide it. Certainly Acreon's excitement was causing the front of his pants to protrude obscenly.

He used both hands on her breasts then, sliding his palms under the fleshy bulbs and thumbing both of Eelesia's nipples. She took a ragged breath, heart pounding in her ears.

Eelesia placed her own hands ontop of Acreon's. "Um, seeing as how I'm not wearing a shirt, why don't you take off yours?"

Acreon smiled at her, taking his hands off her perky little breasts to undo his laces. He slid out of the pale silk, revealing his slender torso with its smooth ivory skin and subtle musculature. He draped his shirt on the chair by the bed.

"Gods, you're beautiful," Acreon murmured, not shy about looking her up and down this time.

Eelesia smiled at him. "That's what I was going to say."

Acreon blushed as he grinned. He pulled Eelesia into his arms, and the warm, perfect feeling of their bare chests crushing together was shockingly wonderful, begetting almost identical intakes of breath from the two of them.

Suddenly they were kissing. It was slow but passionate, and more insistant than ever before. His mouth opened to admit her tongue as his snaked around it, encouraging. Acreon's hands caressed her bare back. Her hands ran through his soft wavy hair.

They melted together in a way they never had before, flesh on flesh. Stumbling, Acreon fell back onto the bed and Eelesia ontop of him.

"Wait," Acreon said, his words mushed by her lips. "Wait."

Eelesia lifted herself up a little to look at him. She rubbed his shins with her toes.

Acreon put his hand on her cheek. "Why now?"

Eelesia smiled wryly. "Because, come on, this is stupid."

"Stupid?"

Eelesia sighed. "I'm tired of crawling into bed every night, and pretending the pillow between my legs is you, when there's no good reason why it isn't." She squeezed his hips with her thighs to emphasize the point.

"Oh," Acreon said, his heart thudding audibly.

"I mean, what are we waiting _for_, exactly?" Eelesia asked as she nuzzled his neck a little.

"I don't know," Acreon chuckled. "I suppose we just kind of developed a habit."

"A bad habit," Eelesia teased.

"Mmmmh," Acreon agreed.

Eelesia pressed her lips to his again.

"You're quite bold for a maiden," Acreon mumbled into her lips.

Eelesia laughed. "Like you would know."

"I really wouldn't," Acreon agreed.

Acreon wrapped his arms around her back and her lips fell on his once more. In a remarkable display of agility, Eelesia brought her legs up and hooked her toes into Acreon's pants and pulled them down to his ankles with her feet, all without breaking the kiss. Acreon's breathing grew labored as his hands glided smoothly over her flesh, exploring the skin of her back.

As Eelesia relaxed her body and sank into him again, she felt something very warm fall against her inner thigh. She didn't need to look to know what it was. A desirous moan escaped her as she crossed tongues with Acreon. She felt Acreon kick his pants off and heard them flutter to the floor. All that remained between the two of them was the thin silk of her panties.

She ran her hands over him as he continued to run his hands over her. Acreon slid his hands down her body, stopping in the small of her back with his fingers splayed downward, hesitating. He slid his hands up her back and down again, and this time slowly slipped his fingers beneath the light fabric, exposing Eelesia's supple rump.

"Mmmmm," Eelesia approved.

Eelesia reached back and put her hand ontop of Acreon's, encouraging him, then grabbed her panties, lifted herself slightly and yanked them passed her knees. Her hand bumped Acreon's rigid cock and Eelesia's heart skipped a beat. Settling down on Acreon again, she kicked the panties to the floor.

Eelesia squeezed her legs together and felt Acreon's thickness caught between her thighs. He moaned dizzily into her mouth.

Eelesia pressed her bared pussy up against the base of Acreon's hot cock, engorged lips spilling to either side of it. She moaned and before she knew what she was doing, Eelesia was grinding her slit against the fleshy shaft, coating Acreon's length with her wetness.

They still weren't technically having sex, but what Eelesia was doing felt too good to stop. Even just rubbing her pussy on Acreon's warm flesh felt so much better than the pillow. Her hips moved sensually under his hands as he massaged the bouncy flesh of her tight butt.

"Uuhhn," Eelesia moaned, breaking the kiss to gasp for air. She bucked faster, burying her face in Acreon's neck. She licked the hollow behind his ear and proceeded to trail her lips down to his collar bone. Eelesia drew a ragged breath. The fire was in her, so intense; it had been masked by the heat of Acreon's body.

"Aahh!" Eelesia gasped, as a force seemed to rush through her body towards her crotch. Her loins imploded violently, sending shockwaves through her limbs and making her jerk and twich uncontrollably with each spasm in her loins.

Eelesia let the massive orgasm flow through her, reveling in it. She went limp ontop of him, breathing against his neck.

She tasted blood. "What - ?"

"You bit me," Acreon said, astonished.

Eelesia pushed herself up. There was a red imprint of teeth on his shoulder, sure enough. Eelesia stared at it, wide-eyed.

"Oh! I'm sorry," she exclaimed. "I swear I don't remember doing that."

Acreon was, almost unconsiously, rocking his hips a little bit, trying to get pressure against his cock. He was still flushed and breathing heavily.

"It's alright," he said. "I barely noticed when you did it."

"Really?"

"Watching you, uh, climax, was so... thrilling," Acreon confessed.

Eelesia buried her face in his chest, a little embarassed, but pleased all the same. She slid off him to the side, and got her first good look at Acreon's erect cock.

It was a smoothe pale phalus, pinker than the rest of Acreon's ivory skin and sticking straight up more than six inches from a little patch of black fuzz. It wavered slightly, twitching with each of Acreon's heartbeats. Half of it was glistening with Eelesia's own moisture.

She stared at it hungrily. Gingerly, she took the throbbing shaft in her hand. It jumped at her touch and Acreon breathed in sharply.

Acreon's hand found one of her breasts and caressed it as she slowly began to stroke him. In only about ten seconds, Acreon tensed up and his cock spasmed in her grip, shooting his white seed into the air. The first spurt flew all the way over Eelesia's head, but the following globules splashed down on Eelesia's arm and Acreon's belly.

Acreon let out a long, slow breath and sank back, spread-eagled on the bed. Eelesia played, spreading the white stuff around with her fingers.

"Okay," Acreon said after a minute, grinning. "I'm much more noticing the bite now."

Eelesia giggled and apologized again.

Acreon went around the partition, and Eelesia followed, drinking in the sight of his lithe naked body. His glance lingered on her too. She smiled.

Acreon washed the bite and found that it was very shallow, only breaking the skin slightly in one or two places; it was already mostly healed. He dried his hands and went back to her, taking her in his arms. Naked flesh on naked flesh, unbound, again felt amazingly good. It felt... pure. Right.

Acreon looked at her. "I suppose that we're still virgins, technically speaking."

"Barely," Eelesia giggled. "Next time, all we need to do is do what we just did, only with you inside me."

Acreon kissed her softly. "I like the sound of that."

"I don't want to get dressed yet," Eelesia said. "You won't, um, need magic today, will you?"

Acreon shook his head. "Nope. I'm all yours," he said, towing her back to the bed.

"Lay down," Eelesia told him.

Acreon stretched out on the bed while Eelesia went around to her bedside table, where she kept the music box Acreon had helped make for her so many years ago. She tapped the lid and it opened, filling the room with its soft music.

Eelesia climbed into bed next to Acreon, scooching herself against him and pulling his arm over her. With those soft notes in the air, Acreon rolled onto his side with her, pressing his chest into her back as his hand slid onto her breasts. She wriggled her butt into his crotch and felt his semi-hard cock nestle between her cheeks.

Acreon slid his arm under her head and his lips found her neck. Eelesia pulled the sheet over them and closed her eyes, clutching Acreon's arms to her.

No words exsist that can properly convey the bliss of that moment. Or the next. Or the minutes following it.

Eelesia and Acreon spooned, listening to Eelesia's music box, and lost all sense of time until Eelesia, wiggling her butt almost unconsiously, stirred Acreon's manhood back to attention.

"Mmmmh," Eelesia moaned. "Don't move, just put it in me."

"Okay," Acreon breathed, reaching down. He slid his hand over her taut butt, searching with a finger for the hot spot. He felt the absurdly soft flesh of her netherlips part for his finger and the texture suddenly changed from soft and silky to slippery, spongey, and hot.

Acreon forgot to breathe for a second. He was touching her in her most intimate place, for the first time. Remembering where he felt her scorching core, Acreon pushed the head of his hard cock into the spot. The heat and moisture broke over the tip, and Eelesia whimpered, slowly gyrating her hips to work his length into her virgin confines.

Acreon slid his hand back to her breasts and squeezed her to him. Inch by inch, Eelesia's hot wetness consumed Acreon's shaft until he was burried to the hilt. Eelesia was panting and squeezing his hand tightly while Acreon burried his face in her neck, his mouth open in a silent cry. The only movement was the shifting of their bodies as they breathed, but that was enough.

"Nothing, on this world or any other, could be better than this," Acreon murmured breathlessly.

"The books said this was supposed to hurt, but nothing could be further from pain," Eelesia whimpered.

"I love you, Eelesia," Acreon whispered into her neck.

Eelesia kissed his hand, pushing her hips back so Acreon slid in another half inch or so, splaying her netherlips over the base of his shaft. Acreon ground gently against her, sliding his arm around her waist to hold them even more tightly together. The arm that was under her head folded across her chest and caressed the breast that Acreon's other hand had abandoned.

They rocked slowly together like that for what seemed an eternity and an instant and everything in between. His body was pressed to hers so tightly that they were as one, yet by their rocking somehow there was room for Acreon's cock to plow through her throbbing tunnel. Every little movement, every little bit of flesh, was so acutely felt.

Eelesia let out a little whimpering moan with each breath, and Acreon's whole body trembled every time he exhaled. Thanks to their earlier play, though, Acreon found himself able to keep himself from exploding inside her every time her insides slipped up and down his shaft with the rocking of their hips.

It wasn't going to last forever, though. With every thrust, his body was flooded more violently with tension and need, each time her hips rocked back and he felt his cock slide through her hot flesh, he was sure it was going to overtake him

Acreon was moaning out loud, now, the pitch rising slightly with each stroke.

Eelesia felt his buildup as if it were her own. Her pussy responded to the excitement with a preorgasmic ripple. Acreon was panting as fast as her heart was beating.

"Cum," Eelesia told him in a whispered cry. "Fill me! Acreon! My Acreon! Fill me up!"

Acreon's reply was swallowed up in the cry of pleasure that escaped him as an explosion shook his body, rippling out from his groin as his whole body seemed to drive the cum from him.

Eelesia gasped as she felt his hot spray bathe her womb as he thrashed against her, all control gone. The sheer eroticism of the moment was what did it for her. She knew she was making love with Acreon and he had just crested his pleasure inside her body, and that very vivid thought drove her over the edge.

She cried out too, digging fingers into Acreon's hands.

Moaning as her pussy continued to twitch, Eelesia continued to gyrate her hips, milking Acreon's cock for every last bit of his hot seed. His cock pulsed twice more, then again one last time as he began to go soft.

Eelesia felt him soften, the walls of her pussy keeping contact with Acreon's spent, shrinking flesh. His breath warmed the back of her neck.

Threading her fingers through Acreon's, Eelesia closed her eyes and murmured, "My love..."

* * *

Neither of the young lovers fell asleep, but for hours they did not move. Acreon grew hard again, his cock growing within her, but they did not stir until laying such on the bed became genuenly uncomfortable.

Acreon, keeping Eelesia pressed to his chest, rolled them to their other side, but the blissful haze was lifted.

Eelesia laughed.

She turned in his arms, his mostly-erect cock slipping out of her. She kissed him, long and hard. Acreon's tongue spiraled around hers.

"I love you," Eelesisa told him when they broke apart. "We should have done this years ago."

"Live and learn," Acreon grinned, sitting up suddenly and throwing his arms around her. Shifting Eelesia, Acreon sat crosslegged with her in his lap. He adjusted himself and then sheathed his erection in Eelesia's well-lubricated womanhood.

Eelesia gasped in surprise. "Oh that's good," she breathed.

She settled onto him, locking her legs around his back and throwing her arms around his neck. The position seemed so natural, but they'd gotten into it almost accidently. Acreon slid his hands down her body to rest on her hips and burried his face in her pert breasts. His lips found a nipple and gently sucked on it.

"Oh, gods, I never want to get dressed again," Eelesia cooed into Acreon's hair, holding his head to her chest.

"Mmmmmh," Acreon replied as his tongue drew circles around her nipple.

Eelesia bucked her hips, undulating her body. Acreon's cock slid half out of her and all the way back in, moving freely inside her gooey hole. She felt sort of raw, slightly sore, this still being essentially her first time, but Eelesia barely noticed; everything felt way too good.

Acreon was moaning into her breasts with every stroke. Eelesia threw her head back as she clutched Acreon to her. His cry was muffled by Eelesia's chest, but she felt his body shake and his cock pulse violently within her. Acreon would have fallen over if not for Eelesia's legs locked around him.

His cock deflated almost immediatly as he panted against Eelesia's chest. She stroked his wavey hair and unhooked her legs from around him. His soft manhood fell out of her, releasing a dripping flow of mixed cum.

Eelesia squeezed her legs together to trap it as she stretched out laying half ontop of Acreon. His eyes were closed as he caught his breath. She kissed him.

"I feel as though my thoughts have been scattered to the winds," Acreon chuckled. "I could die content, right now."

Eelesia blushed as she smiled. "We're idiots for not doing this two years ago, truly. Gods I've never felt so good. So right."

"So pure," Acreon murmured.

She snuggled up to him and he held her in his arms. "My love," he whispered.

"Forever," Eelesia said in a small voice, her eyes closing.

"Forever," Acreon agreed.

* * *

That night, Eelesia and Acreon parted most reluctantly and went to their separate rooms. Acreon almost didn't let her go, but he was expected to demonstrate for his students tomorrow, and as much as he wanted to drift off with Eelesia in his arms, he knew he couldn't.

For the first time in months, Acreon thought of the two lives he had taken. He remembered the vow he and Eelesia had made that night, to never be careless again. In that dark memory he found the strength not to call Eelesia back to him.

It was the same the next night, and the next, and eventually it got easier to go to sleep in separate beds after making love all evening. Easier, but never easy.


	10. Choices

**~CHOICES~**

In the fall of the year in which Eelesia and Acreon come of age, the otherworldly creature known as Ceraloni set foot on Azerothian soil for the first time in many centuries. She walked at night, garbing herself in the atire of a simple high elven ranger. With such clothing, anyone who saw her would not think to look closer.

If she were the sort of lesser being who was bothered by such things, Ceraloni might have found the cumbersome layers of dark leather very irritating. After all, it was only the third time in her very long life that she'd worn more than the mantle of ultrathin green netherweave. Having her body so encased might have been downright distracting, if she were the sort of lesser being who was bothered by such things.

Adjusting her hood around her elven ears for the hundreth time, Ceraloni peered down into the mountain pass.

There was nothing to see with mortal eyes, but Ceraloni was not mortal. Leaping from her perch high in the rocks, she landed nimbly in the center of the road. She stood exactly where her missing Felpod had closed in on its target, and then...

A primal growl of fury escaped Ceraloni's throat.

Concentrating, she could follow the Felpod's path with her higher sences to the inch. She could almost see it lower itself and reach out for a flimsy spark of human life. Nothing was abnormal about any of it until, just as the Felpod was about to engulf its prey, it just ceased. Gone. Winked out of existance.

A very mortal chill crawled up Ceraloni's spine.

She wasn't used to encountering things she didn't understand. For a being of her power, surprises simply weren't a part of daily life. When one must deal with the unknown so little, that primal fear of the unknown is left to fester and grow into something truly dangerous.

Ceraloni was frightened, and unacustomed as she was to fear, it twisted within her, knawing and all-consuming.

Standing alone in that mountain pass, she was quite aware of her own obsession forming. She knew that discovering the unknown force behind this mystery would consume her from that moment on.

In her head, she ran through the handful of faces she'd seen in the returned Felpod's memories. It wasn't much, but it was the only lead she had.

The humans were traveling south, most likely towards the only major city in that direction, Stormwind.

Ceraloni blurred into motion, skimming the ground so that from a distance it would look like she was running. Of course, that illusion would only hold to a certain point, as she was moving more quickly than any humanoid being could run.

As she moved, Ceraloni mentally cursed the misfortune that the missing Felpod's counterparts had not looked with more than a passing glance at the one that was gone. No matter, even if it took her countless years, she would find someone who had seen what happened, even if she had to tear the soul out of every mortal on Azeroth.

* * *

Acreon lay with one hand behind his head, stroking Eelesia's hair with the other while she idly kissed the skin of his chest. She had one leg hitched up over his waist as she lay beside him. Acreon's seed oozed from her sated loins, running down onto the bed between them.

They were fully grown now, two perfectly matched lithe and pale bodies, lean and limber from their continuing acrobatics as they roamed the city afoot. Acreon had taken to burning the hair off his body, so that now, at eighteen, he was hairless from neck to toe; it had stopped growing back after a year or two. Eelesia also had not a strand of hair below her head, but it was without effort in her case. Supposedly that was abnormal, but neither lover had given it much thought.

"Did I tell you what I heard from one of my students today?" Acreon asked idly.

"No," Eelesia murmured into his chest, then pushed herself up to look at him. "What?"

"His son was a soldier, on assignment to Lorderon," Acreon told her. "He returned from the north, apparently a deserter."

"Okay," Eelesia said.

Acreon chuckled. "Well the interesting part is the story he was telling. According to him, he ran off because his unit, under the command of none other than the Prince Arthas, was heading into Stratholme to commit genocide of all things."

Eelesia blinked at him. "Really?"

"That's what Hueth says his son says," Acreon replied.

"I can almost believe that," Eelesia said.

"Why?" Acreon wondered.

Eelesia smirked. "No one that popular can go long without developing a god complex."

Acreon laughed and it was only a touch bitter.

"I wonder what we should do with the royalties Jeyne sent this morning," Eelesia giggled.

"I told you your schematics would sell well," Acreon teased. "You've got a knack any gnome would kill for."

Eelesia blushed but gave him a smug smile. "Damn straight."

"We already have more gold than we know what to do with," Acreon mused. "I make more than my parents put together, teaching, and now your designs are getting all popular."

"Yeah," Eelesia said. "Thanks, by the way, for the pseudonym you suggested. It was a very good idea."

"Always shy," Acreon cooed with a grin.

Eelesia rolled her eyes a little and kissed him on the neck. In Gnomeregan, she was known as Ellie Exoverse, and the name was becoming quite valuable. She was sincerly glad that her true identity was not getting the attention, and not just because of worry about her quirk.

For some minutes more, Acreon lay idly stroking Eelesia's hair and skin. He glanced at the clock he'd helped Eelesia build when they were kids; its glowing red numbers pronounced midnight. With a sigh, Acreon began to disentangle himself from Eelesia.

She caught his arm. "Don't go."

"I have to," Acreon reminded her.

"Please?"

Acreon groaned, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "I have to. You know I have to."

Eelesia fell back and rubbed her eyes. "I know."

"I love you."

"Just go, alright?"

"It's not like I want to go," Acreon grumbled. "You know I want to stay, but we promised we wouldn't take risks."

Eelesia didn't answer and only stared at the canopy of her bed. Her eyes glistened with unborn tears.

"Eelesia..."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Go. Go to bed. I'm fine."

"You're lying," Acreon said simply, taking her hand.

"It should be true though!" Eelesia exclaimed suddenly. "I know perfectly well the reasons. Those two lives we took weigh on my conscience too! And I have so much! I have a great life and a promising finacial future and... you. I have you, maybe not quite as much as I'd like, but still, I should be happy!"

"I know," Acreon said. "It's wrong; it feels so wrong to leave you every night, but-"

"But I am cursed," Eelesia interupted. "Cursed!"

"You're not cursed, my love," Acreon said pleadingly. "Just special."

"Special," Eelesia snarled. "In a way that utterly blights an otherwise perfect existance. I am a burden to the man I love!"

"Never!" Acreon insisted. "You're my other half. Two bodies, one soul, remember? You are everything."

"Then stay," Eelesia whimpered.

Acreon opened his mouth to say, "Okay," but the word stuck. He tried to ignore the thoughts of what could happen the next day if he slept with her, but they flooded his mind and for a second he was back in that tunnel, bleeding helplessly on the ground while Eelesia was cornered.

Eelesia nodded at his silence, her jaw set, and threw his hand back at him. "Go to bed."

"Eelesia," Acreon implored.

"Get out!"

Acreon recoiled, wordless with hurt and worry. After retrieving his pants, Acreon left with a parting glance over his shoulder. Eelesia was facing the other way.

* * *

Eelesia wept into her pillow. She hadn't meant to shout at him, but once the subject had been hinted at, it was like a dam had crumbled and unleashed a torrent. Eelesia realized she was jealous of Acreon's magic. Jealous of the time it took from her. She must have been repressing the emotion for years.

"Sorry," she mouthed.

Eelesia cried herself to sleep, and then she dreamed.

An endless dark city, lit by flickering flames of fel fire, reached into a tumulous black sky split by flashes of tainted lightning. Neither the tops nor bottoms of any part of the jagged cityscape could be discerned. Towers rose into the blackness and below all faded into a sickly green glow.

There was an especially large tower that was somehow central to the scene. Demons of all shapes and sizes milled about on its spaceious balconies. Fel light burned within, lighting the great edifice with an eriee beauty.

Such was the sight of peace on Argus. At least, peace as far as demons knew the term.

A horrendous crack split the eternal night, echoing off through the city. A flash from within the citadel, muted by the solid metal skin of its walls, sprayed out white fire creating a disc of brilliance halfway up the tower.

Howls of rage and horror rose as one from the beings caught in the blast radius, and more again as the gargantuan upper half of the citadel creaked and shivered. With a great groaning like the dying cries of a god, the burnt level crumbled and miles of tower began to fall.

It happened very slowly; so large was the citadel that it played tricks on the eye. The upper half of the tower fell and split itself open on the severed tip of the lower half, peeling apart as the unfathomable weight of the miles-tall citadel forced it downward.

A swarm of dancing lights in various colors appeared around the falling tower. They looked like fireflies circling a mountain, but they were actually Eredar and Nathrazim sorcerers rushing to stop the catastrophy. For all their might, they were overmatched and the citadel continued to fall.

Then the sorcerers' lights began to wink out one by one. Dark blurs that revealed themselves to be nearly colorless pale Succubi collided with the straining demons and tore them out of the air. Normal Succubi would have found such powerful demons implaccable, but these were Her elite.

Aiding the Succubi were a flock of oddly shaped plantlike creatures that propelled themselves through the air like jellyfish. Perfected Wereflowers.

Eelesia looked to her right. Standing next to her on the same featurless metal disk, was a dead-eyed Acreon dressed only in a black loincloth. What was most off about it though, was how she looked down at him. Acreon had always been a few inches taller than her.

To her left was the willowy form of her six-armed second. The Shivan's gaze was fixed on the battle.

"Don't be so tense, Raesindra," Eelesia heard herself say in a voice that was not her own. "Your work shines with its success."

"Thank you, Mistress. I am proud."

A swooping blur resolved itself into the First of the pale Succubi. She hovered before them, her naked skin glistening with excitement and arrousal. A single droplet of wetness fell from between the Succubus' legs and rolled off the edge of Eelesia's disc.

"Initial resistance has been removed, my Ladies," the stark-white creature reported.

"Well done, Aala," Eelesia heard herself speak again. "Divide into threes and pacify all neighboring structures."

"At once," Aala chirped, folding her wings and twisting away into a glide back towards the still-collapsing citadel. A Nathrazim dreadlord lept at her from a tall window, but Aala spun so quickly that she was latched onto him before his first blow could fall. In a single motion, she layed his crotch bare and impaled herself on the demon's cock. In less than a second the dreadlord's eyes rolled back into his head as his cock shot fel seed into the pale Succubus.

Aala let go of the dreadlord and he fell limp from her arms, lifeless. The demon's seed trailed through the air behind Aala as her nimble wings powered her onward. It was an impressive display and thrilling to watch.

"Truely, you've done well for me," Eelesia heard herself say as her hand reached around to rest on the Shivan's hip.

Raesindra gasped in a very, very familiar way. Eelesia's arms pulled the demon into an embrace, and her lips went to the Shivan's. A count of seconds ticked in her mind like a clock. From their height, it took exactly four minutes to fall into the pits of slag at the very base of the city. After four minutes had passed, Eelesia's hands held the Shivan out at arm's length.

"Masterful," Eelesia heard herself say. "I shall remember you fondly. Goodbye, Raesindra."

And with that, Eelesia felt her arms give the demon a casual shove. Raesindra stumbled backwards, her arms grasping at empty air before she toppled over the side. She didn't scream at first, only stared into Eelesia's eyes with an expression of complete shock, and then betrayal and heartbreak, and finally terror.

Then it all was different.

Eelesia was herself, the fel city was gone, and it wasn't a strange demon she'd thrown to her death. In the last moments before that face, twisted with pain and shock, vanished into the abyss, it was Acreon.

Eelesia lurched out of bed screaming, "No!"

The dark blur that was her room at night resolved itself and Eelesia put her face in her hands. She took a deep breath to ease her pounding heart and began to cry again. The details of the dream were already fading, like so many other dreams, leaving only the very last image.

"Acreon..."

With a shakey breath, Eelesia threw off her covers and slipped to the floor. She was half-way into the hall before she remembered she was naked. She hesitated only a second, then went to Acreon's door and slipped into his room as quietly as she could.

Acreon was curled up on his side, fast asleep.

Eelesia changed her mind about waking him up when she saw him all peaceful like that. Instead, she pulled an extra blanket off the bed and threw it around herself. Snuggling into the soft fabric, Eelesia sank into the armchair and settled down to watch Acreon sleep.

So close, the longing to be in his arms was palpable, but after a short while Eelesia drifted off.

When she woke again, it was morning, and Acreon was already dressed, sitting cross-legged in the air beside her, the way he used to when they were younger. Eelesia met his gaze without moving, staring long into his brilliant purple eyes.

"I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm so sorry," she said finally.

Acreon only smiled. After a moment, Eelesia smiled back and Acreon set his feet on the floor and leaned down to kiss her. Eelesia closed her eyes and sighed. Acreon pulled her up into his arms and held her to him, resting his lips on her neck. He gently kissed her skin as Eelesia tightened her arms around him.

"You sort of had a point, though," Acreon told her.

"I did?"

Acreon shook his head. "My love, I find it amazing that you've never before wanted me to choose between you and my magic."

"Because you shouldn't have to," Eelesia insisted.

Acreon pulled back to look at her, becoming sombre. "But maybe I do have to."

"Acreon, no. I-"

"It's time for me to grow up, Eelesia," Acreon said firmly, then more softly added, "It's time for me to decide what kind of person I'm going to be."

Eelesia stared at him, fear plain on her face as her stomach twisted in knots. "You don't have to..."

Acreon held her face in his hands. "Yes I do," he murmured. "You need me to."

"No, Acreon..."

He kissed her, fearcely, crushing her to his chest. Slowly, Acreon let her go and turned to go.

"Where are you going?" Eelesia asked.

Acreon paused. "To say goodbye to my students."

Eelesia's heart almost stopped when he said that. He was going to choose her; of course he was. Relief and joy warred with guilt and anguish. With Acreon gone, she sank absently onto his bed.

* * *

When Acreon returned home that evening, he found Eelesia sitting alone in the workshop with some half-finished device held idly in her hands.

"I quit my job," Acreon announced with a grin.

Eelesia looked up at him sadly for a moment before dropping the hunk of metal and flying into his arms. "Acreon..."

"It's alright, Eelesia," Acreon said. "I've been thinking about this all day, and my mind is made up."

Eelesia looked at him for a moment. "About what?"

Acreon stepped back and took Eelesia's left hand in both of his and stared into her eyes. "Eelesia, I want to marry you."

Eelesia felt tears coming and fought them back. "Acreon, nothing would make me happier, but I can't ask you to give up what you are."

"You don't have to. I already have," Acreon replied with a grin. "I never really thought about it before, but now that I have, there is no doubt in my mind about what I cannot live without."

"But you're a prodigy!" Eelesia exclaimed. "You're destined to be one of the greatest mages of this age!"

"I'm destined to be your husband," Acreon told her. "This is my choice, Eelesia. It's what I want."

"Are you sure?" Eelesia asked weakly.

"Absolutely," Acreon replied softly, taking her face in his hands. "I love you."

Eelesia made a wordless noise and melted into his arms, closing her eyes and turning her face into his chest. Acreon rested his cheek on the top of her head and rocked them back and forth a little bit.

"So where would you like to live, my love?" Acreon murmured.

Eelesia giggled. "We're going to have to leave the city, huh."

"And make up a new surname for ourselves, I think," Acreon added. "The Kalistrak name is too well known, and too assosiated with magic."

"What are we going to tell Halia and Khet?" Eelesia wondered.

"That it's time we got out on our own," Acreon chuckled. "We could have the wedding itself here in the city. My mom and dad will never forgive us if we don't let them come."

Eelesia laughed. "Yeah."

The rest of that day was spent discussing the practical concerns of safely establishing their new life together. It was a delicate balancing act, to make sure there would be no cause for questions to be asked, and to make sure they wouldn't be recognized by anyone who knew Acreon to be magical.

They told Khet and Halia together. Halia positivly glowed with pride, and later when she was busy, Khet snuck back to give them tips on the practical arrangements.

That night, Acreon and Eelesia went to bed together in Acreon's room.

"Are you really sure about this?" Eelesia asked, turning to him naked as she dropped her panties onto the chair with her other clothes.

Acreon, already undressed and in bed, patted the sheet next to him. "I am."

Eelesia slid in next to him and pulled the covers up. His familiar warmth soaked into her. She ran her hand over his belly and down to grip his hardening shaft.

They rolled together into a spooning position, snuggling up together. He pulled her tight to his chest, sliding his hand onto her breasts.

"Mmmh," Acreon moaned as her warmth saturated him and he nuzzled her neck.

Eelesia reached down and pushed the the head of his cock into her folds, massaging the flesh and teasing herself with it. After a moment or two she was wet enough for it to slid in, and it did. Acreon thrust gently into her until he was burried, then went back to softly kissing her neck.

Eelesia sighed, clutching Acreon's hand to her chest, and closed her eyes. They drifted to sleep like that, Acreon's lips on her neck and his cock burried in her pussy, where it belonged.

* * *

That night was an important night, and not just for Eelesia and Acreon.

In the very same city of Stormwind, those with whom Eelesia and Acreon's fate is entangled reached turning points of their own.

For that was the night Ceraloni reached the city.

In her elven ranger disguise, she stalked up the Valley of Heroes, her shadow thrown sharp by moonlight. No one questioned her but the night guards watched her with wide eyes. She ignored them and strode into the city proper.

Even after dark the streets bustled. Ceraloni padded aimlessly, keeping careful watch for any of the faces she remembered from the caravan. She wandered along the canals, peering from beneath her hood into the face of anyone she passed.

For several hours, no one she passed looked familiar.

The streets grew quiet with the passing of midnight. Ceraloni continued her route through the city. She still hadn't found one face she recognized when she paused atop one of the canal bridges to think.

She turned her concentration inward, running through the short catalogue of faces in her mind again. Before she could finish though, she sensed a presence behind her.

"Ma'am?" a boyish voice asked.

Ceraloni checked to make sure that the illusion that paled her skin and hid the fire in her eyes was solid, and turned toward the sourse of the voice.

He was a bland-looking twenty-something man, wearing the plate armor of the City Watch. Ceraloni felt a thrill go through her. He was one of the men who'd been with the caravan! Quickly, she put a smile on her face and lifted her head.

The young guard's eyes widened in suprise as the moonlight revealed Ceraloni's inhuman beauty.

"Yes?" Ceraloni said.

"Um... Uh," the guard stammered, having completely forgotten his purpose. "I was just..."

Ceraloni slinked closer to the stunned human boy. He was of a height with her breasts, she noted. "What do you want?" she asked softly.

The boy stared at her leather-clad chest until he realized what he was looking at and jerked his eyes upward. He seemed to finally regain a little composure as he hurredly took a step backwards.

"What's your name, boy?" Ceraloni asked, her voice seductive.

Ceraloni's excitement and impatience were masked perfectly, but had there been no witnesses she would have tackled the human male into the sky, fucked him, and dropped his carcass into the ocean. But that would be rash and unessesary. Judging by how flustered he'd become at just the sight of her face, simply seducing him would be effortless and nearly as quick.

"My name?" he gulped. "Uh, Nicolas."

"Have you remembered what you wanted to say yet, Nicolas?" Ceraloni purred.

Nicolas stared, bewildered by the contradiction of her words and her tone. "Um, well," he began.

"It can't have been that important if you forget every time you see a pretty face," Ceraloni teased.

Nicolas blushed furiously. "Well, uh, see," he began, but the elven woman cut him off again.

"Do you live around here, Nicolas?" Ceraloni asked. "Would you maybe want to offer this weary traveler some refreshment?"

Ceraloni winked, and Nicolas completely forgot he still had an hour left of his shift. An unbidden grin split his face. "Uh, sure, my place is just over there," he stammered.

Ceraloni offered the young man her arm. He touched her with trembling hands and led her into Old Town. His apartment was modest and simple. Nicolas went to his cupboards in search of something to offer his guest. Ceraloni closed and sealed the door behind her, then dissolved her clothes.

Nicolas was busy rumaging, and didn't notice. "So, um, you're like a ranger, right?" he asked.

"Not really," Ceraloni purred.

"Oh." Nicolas filled two small mugs with something that might have been wine a year ago. He picked the mugs up and turned, saying, "I hope-"

He fell silent, rendered speechless by the sight of Ceraloni standing naked before him.

With a murmured spell, she dissolved his clothes and pulled him to her. She lifted him up like a child and jammed her tongue into his mouth.

Nicolas moaned like a wounded animal, nearly limp in Ceraloni's warm arms. She set him down again and pushed his face into her breasts, which he began to suckle eagerly.

Nicolas' cock was harder than steel and already throbbing as it poked her thigh. He probably hadn't had the attentions of a woman in years. He was unprepaired and overwhelmed, which suited Ceraloni just fine.

She sat down on the edge of the small kitchen table and grabbed Nicolas by the butt, yanking him and his straining cock towards her dripping slit. Ceraloni positioned him at her opening and slammed him in, roughly squeezing his ass. Nicolas fell onto her, his face landing in her breasts again. He was trying to do more than flail like a limp rag doll, but Ceraloni wasn't letting him.

She held onto his butt, slaming his cock into her hot pussy again and again. Poor Nicolas never had a chance.

He cried out into the flesh of Ceraloni's chest as she slammed him in hard the final time. His body twitched like an electrocution victim, and she felt his cock pulsing violently within her walls.

As with all beings who experience a powerful orgasm, Nicolas' mind ceased to exsist for a bare instant. An instant was all it took, though. Ceraloni rended his spirit, tearing it from his being and banishing his mind forever, giving it no place to return to.

Nicolas' heart stopped, and Ceraloni was plunged into the life she had just ended.

She rode out the whirlwind of memories and feelings, then began sifting through them. She found the caravan and started adding the faces from Nicolas' memory to her catalogue. Nicolas hadn't seen much though, so the new faces were all Ceraloni had gotten for her efforts.

Dissapointed, Ceraloni shoved Nicolas' limp body off of her. It hit the floor with a dull thud.

With a wave of her hand, her ranger outfit was back in place, and the search continued.

* * *

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Azzlik and Ezzrik the twin gnomes, were reclining naked against the headboard of a large, human-sized bed. Jeyne was doing a striptease for them. They watched her with identical grins and absently stroked themselves.

Jeyne's compact gnomish body moved with a wiggly rythmn as she peeled her lingerie off one inch at a time. She was down to nothing but a tiny thong and a corset, both dark red.

Jeyne turned her back on the Twins and bent over, wiggling her butt at them and looking at them through her legs. She braced herself by putting her hands down on the bed between her spread legs and gyrated her nearly-naked bottom at the Twins. Only a tiny strip of red cloth, no wider than a finger, hid her puffy gnomish pussy from view.

Winking at her boytoys, Jeyne reached behind her back with one hand and pulled at the thong. The tiny cloth vanished between her netherlips, drawn tight against her crotch. Balancing, Jeyne masturbated herself with the thong while she reached down and slowly unzipped the corset.

"Ooh, yeah, that's good," Jeyne squeaked as she grinded against her panties. The corset popped open, her bouncy breasts bursting free.

And then Azzlik blew his load.

Jeyne giggled as red-haired gnome's hot seed landed on her bottom and thighs. "Come on, Ezzrik, you too," she cooed, wiggling her butt at him.

"Ah!" Ezzrik exclaimed, and his seed shot into the air, joining his brother's on Jeyne's upturned ass.

Jeyne unfolded herself and flopped down between the two identical naked male gnomes. She kissed Azzlik, then Ezzrik, and took their softening cocks in each of her hands. Azzlik put his hands on her, taking her right breast and nipping at the nipple. Ezzrik did the same to her left breast.

While the Twins focused on her breasts, Jeyne gently squeezed a cock in each hand, coaxing them back to attention.

Both Twins had one hand at her crotch, their fingers slipping under red fabric to play in the wetness of her folds.

"You two are just so much fun," Jeyne giggled.

After about a minute, the Twins' cocks finally responded to Jeyne's nimble fingers and hardened up again.

Jeyne kicked off her thong and rolled onto Ezzrik, grabbing his wrists and pinning his arms back. She kissed him hard, winding her tongue around his, as Azzlik moved around behind her and guided his brother's cock to Jeyne's steaming hole.

Her compact little body rippled like a flag in the wind, riding Ezzrik's smoothe hardness. She gave Azzlik a wanton look and slapped her ass.

Jeyne slowed her undulating so Azzlik could smear the cum still present on her rear towards her tight little rosebud. His finger slipped inside her, making her squirm happily ontop of his brother.

She went back to sticking her tongue down Ezzrik's throat while Azzlik lubed up her ass with the Twin's own cum. Jeyne felt Azzlik position himself behind her. She wiggled her hips, moaning in delight when she felt his cockhead pressing into her tightest hole.

Ezzrik's cock moved around in her dripping pussy, spuring her on before Azzlik was even all the way in. Jeyne bucked her hips, crying, "Oh yes!"

The Twins fucked her holes with wild abandon and she gave better than she got, twisting her hips forward and back, slamming the twin cocks into her pussy and ass.

Jeyne's limber undulations broke down into a fit of uncoordinated spasms as her orgasm tore through her body. Ezzrik went ridgid as a board beneath her, his eyes rolling up into his head. Shockwaves seemed to flow through his body in reverse, pulling in towards his cock and culminating in a powerful blast of semen erupting into Jeyne's cervix.

Ezzrik twitched beneath her and Azzlik continued to pound her ass, thrusting in as hard as he could, and pausing for a second before pulling back and doing it again.

As she went limp ontop of Ezzrik, Azzlik slammed into her one last time, his fingers digging into Jeyne's hips, exclaiming, "Ohahh!"

Azzlik's cock, burried to the hilt in her ass, sprayed seed into her bowels. Jeyne whimpered appreciatively.

Azzlik collapsed ontop of Jeyne, making a three-high tower of sweaty, satisfied gnomes. Legs tangled, they tipped onto their sides, arms all around each other with Jeyne still samwiched between the Twins. Her eyes were closed and she had a little grin on her face.

It was quiet for a few moments, the only sound their breathing. Jeyne turned herself and kissed Azzlik. Ezzrik spooned up behind her.

Someone outside, down on the streets of Old Town, was shouting. Jeyne frowned in annoyance and continued to kiss Azzlik's soft lips.

The shouting grew louder, but Jeyne ignored it until she heard what sounded like the word "Gnomeregan."

She sat up suddenly. "What was that?"

The Twins glanced toward the window. Jeyne scrambled off the bed and climbed a chair to the window, opening the shutters so she could hear the Crier's words.

"...fallen! Troggs have risen from the depths! The city has been evacuated and irradiated! Gnomeregan has fallen! Troggs have risen..."

Jeyne stumbled back from the window, her foot slipped on the edge of the chair and she tumbled backwards, but luckly the Twins had followed her to the window. They caught her.

She spun around and clutched them to her. "Gnomeregan, fallen?"

The Twins could only gape. "It can't be true, mi'Lady," one of them said.

Jeyne pushed them away. "Get dressed, we have buisness to attend to," she told them. "If they know about the radiation failsafe, its true," her voice broke.

The Twins glanced at each other, then hurried to retrieve their clothing. Jeyne pulled on the nearest dress and began to wind her long blue hair up. A tear leaked from her eye.

* * *

Needless to say, Gnomeregan's fall destabalized the gadget market horribly. Only a few days after the Crier shouted the news, Eelesia's income dried up. She and Acreon had a significant stockpile of gold, of course, but they decided it would be wise to hold off on their plans until the fall.

Jeyne had come to them a week after the news broke that spring, to let them know what the state of Eelesia's holdings were. Jeyne had been so sombre and sad. Eelesia had comforted the gnome, promising that the temporary lapse in income would be no particular hardship.

In the summer months, since Acreon had given up magic, whenever he wasn't with Eelesia he spent his time with the garrison, learning to handle a sword. Unfortunatly he struggled with it quite a bit, but halfway through the summer he grew so fed up that he threw down his blade and went at his instructor with bare hands. Ironically, he faired better against the master swordsman unarmed than he had with his own sword.

After that, Acreon gave up the sword and began training with fist weapons.

While Acreon was at his lessons, Eelesia liked to sneak out of the city to work in a shed she'd hidden in the foothills. It was her greatest work yet and she planned on surprising Acreon with it after their wedding. Getting the materials had put a hefty dent in her saved gold, but it would be worth it in the long run.

Her big surprise wasn't the only project Eelesia worked on though. In Halia's familiar workshop, Eelesia was perfecting a few of her more brilliant inventions. Eventually the items she was working on would make up a survival kit for Acreon and herself.

Acreon liked to help her in her work after his lessons. Without magic, the complexities of the mechanical provided an excellent focus for his arcane-inclined mind.

So the summer waned, the Gnomish nation resettled with the Dwarves of Ironforge, and the name of Ellie Exoverse once more generated revenue.

* * *

Eelesia pulled off her custom goggles and wiped her forehead. A large crecent of white cloth was laid out on her work table. Thin magnetic ribs ran like a spiderweb through the inside of the cloth and in places a flap was cut open to provide access to the power source and triggering mechanisms, which Eelesia had just finished installing.

Eelesia set her goggles down and flexed her hands. The work was very precise and her fingers were feeling a little cramped.

She heard footsteps and a moment later Acreon's arms folded across her shoulders.

"Mmmh. Hi."

Eelesia leaned back into his embrace. "You have very good timing, you know. How was your lesson?"

"Violent," Acreon told her, kissing her head.

"So you had fun then?" Eelesia teased.

Acreon laughed, then he looked closer at what was on the table. "You've finished your Flexweave Underlay!"

"Nearly," Eelesia replied. "I thought it would be the easiest piece of the kit, which is why I left it for last, but I should have known creating a cloak that can become wings on demand wouldn't be that easy. But I think it's ready. I just have to attach the harness."

Eelesia turned around in Acreon's arms and pressed her lips to his. He smiled at her. She loved seeing that smile. It spoke of such utter peace and certainty, and he only wore it when he looked at her. "I love you so," she told him, and kissed him again.

Acreon held her close for a long moment.

"Come on, help me with this," Eelesia said, grabbing the leather harness.

"Alright, I'll hold the cloth steady while you work," Acreon replied, letting her go and flattening out an area in the center of the white cloak.

Eelesia attatched the leather to the skeleton of the cloak with small strips of metal that she slid through pre-cut slits in the cloth and leather, bending each into a loop and welding it shut.

When she was done, Eelesia gathered the cloak up off the worktable and shook it out. It was slightly heavier than a normal cloak, but it looked completely innocuous.

"Try it on," Acreon suggested.

"Yeah," Eelesia agreed, slipping her arms through the harness. "It fits, at least."

Acreon took a step back and said, "Go for it."

Eelesia nodded, feeling along the metalic edge of the cloth. She flourished it a little and then gripped the triggers.

"Whoa!" With an electric snap, the cloak went nearly rigid, unfurling into a white wing more than twice as wide as Eelesia's outstretched arms. "It works!"

Acreon grinned. "You look like a giant butterfly. Pretty."

Eelesia grinned back at him. She let go of the cloak and it fell limp again. "I think I'm ready to try all the parts at once."

"Have you decided what to include on the belt yet?" Acreon asked.

Eelesia nodded. "Yeah, I think so. The Lightning Generator can be concealed in the small of the back. Then there's the Reflector Shield and Net Launcher hung from the hips."

"You've really outdone yourself with this stuff, Eelesia."

Eelesia grinned. "Thanks."

* * *

A short while later, Acreon was standing on the balcony of the highest tower in the Royal Keep, looking out over the city. The escorts were sitting inside, talking quietly. Their names were Ivara and Brian and it was their job to make sure Eelesia and Acreon didn't go anywhere in the Keep that they weren't supposed to. Ivara was a healer, as Acreon had requested incase something went wrong with Eelesia's test.

"The wind isn't to bad. This should be easy," Eelesia said as she emerged beside him.

Acreon turned to examine her. Eelesia was wearing the full kit, every piece crafted by her own hand. First were the goggles, an intricate device with nearly a dozen lenses and electrical components designed to highlight certain things in her vision. Then there was the Flexweave Cloak she'd just completed, trailing to the side in the breeze. The bulky gloves were capable of firing explosive rockets and the Nitro boots could create a tiny explosion under the feet, making high leaps possible. And finally there was the belt with the three handheld devices.

"You look so sexy right now," Acreon teased.

Eelesia laughed. "Let's start with the rocket gloves and the goggle targeting system."

"Alright. Ready?"

"Yeah."

Acreon picked up one of the apple-sized stones they'd brought, and hurled it into the air as hard as he could. Eelesia lifted her right arm, followed the stone for a second, and fired a rocket. With a flaming hiss the rocket shot forth.

In less than a second, the rocket hit its target and exploded.

"Yes!" Eelesia cheered. "Did you see that?"

"I'm officially impressed," Acreon laughed.

"Luck," Brian muttered, stepping outside with Ivara on his heels.

"You think so?" Acreon asked, lobbing two rocks at once.

Grinning, Eelesia lifted both arms, aming both rockets at once. She fired each in quick succession. Both streaked through the air and two more stones became scorched dust.

Acreon laughed and applauded, beaming.

Brian and Ivara could only stare incredulously.

Eelesia lept into Acreon's arms and kissed him. "I can't believe it works!"

"I can," Acreon said. Eelesia blushed, laughing.

"Alright, you and the healer there go down to the streets," Eelesia said. "It's time to fly."

Acreon grabbed her and swept her into his arms once more. "I'll be waiting at the bottom," he murmured to her.

With that, Acreon took Ivara and headed down.

"Aren't you worried about her?" Ivara asked.

"Very," Acreon admitted. "By the way, if she hurts herself and you don't save her, I will be very, very upset with you."

Ivara gulped. Acreon hid a smirk.

Some minutes later, Acreon and Ivara emerged onto the streets in the shadow of the Keep. Eelesia waved at them.

Acreon's heart was pounding, but he had faith in Eelesia. The chances of her actually getting hurt were nill, Acreon thought.

Eelesia was standing on the edge of the balcony. She flourished her cloak, and leaped. There was a burst of light and the faint crack of her Nitro boots going off. Eelesia wheeled up into open air, arcing gracefully into a dive.

Acreon's eyes were riveted on the falling shape of his Eelesia. He couldn't be sure, but he thought she was laughing.

Halfway to the ground, the wing sprang open. Eelesia pulled up into a glide, then in a heartstopping move, turned a full corkscrew and folded the wings back into another dive, this one angled towards Acreon and Ivara.

Eelesia opened her wings and caught air again mere feet above the ground, she swooped across the water of the canal and within inches of Acreon's head.

She _was_ laughing.

Eelesia glided up in a large arc to bleed off speed and came around again, gliding low towards Acreon and Ivara. She flared, coming to almost a complete stop in mid-air before letting the cloak fold and dropping the four feet or so to the ground.

"Oh gods that was exhilarating!" Eelesia exclaimed.

Acreon rushed into her embrace. "That was incredible, Eelesia. It's like you were born with those wings."

Eelesia glanced over Acreon's shoulder and started laughing again.

"What?" Acreon turned and saw that Ivara had fainted.

Acreon's laugher joined Eelesia's as they each clutched the other close.

* * *

"It was so weird, though," Eelesia said to him that night. "From the second I jumped it was so natural. I didn't even have to think about it. My body just knew how."

Acreon kissed her neck. "It was a bit strange," Acreon admitted. "Magnificent, but strange. When I tried I could barely keep myself steady long enough to crash into the canals."

"Yeah," Eelesia chuckled. She snuggled herself closer to him, wiggling her butt against Acreon's spent cock. Acreon's hand cupped her breast as he absently nuzzled Eelesia's neck.

Acreon breathed a deep, contented sigh and closed his eyes.

"I wish I could describe what it was like," Eelesia murmured. She grabbed his hand. "Hey."

"What?"

"We're getting married tomorrow," Eelesia whispered.

Acreon opened his eyes and smiled. "I know."

Eelesia kissed his hand and snuggled herself closer to him again. "Maybe we don't have to leave the city after all. At least, not forever, anyway. No one seems to have noticed that you can't do magic anymore."

"Except my Mom," Acreon pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but she's not making a fuss about it," Eelesia replied.

"What about our cottage in Dun Morogh?" Acreon asked.

Eelesia wiggled around again, just to feel Acreon's warm skin move against her back. "I haven't changed my mind about that," Eelesia told him. "I just... I'll miss the city. I like Stormwind."

"I'll miss it to," Acreon murmured into her neck. "I've lived here longer than you, remember?"

"You're right," Eelesia giggled. "You were born here. I'd never even seen the city before I met you ten... no, eleven years ago."

"Eleven years," Acreon repeated.

"Yeah."

"I love you, Eelesia."

"I love you too. Forever."

"Forever," Acreon agreed.

* * *

(**A/N:** And that's all I wrote. I do intend to finish this story some day, and while I do have an outline for the final six chapters, I unfortunately only have immediate plans to work on other higher-priority projects. I suppose that means you should consider this story ON HIATUS until further notice. I hope you enjoyed Eelesia and Acreon's tale come this far.)


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